


Nights Without Night

by MarinaVivancos



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Explicit Sexual Content, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Humor, M/M, PTSD, Pining, veteran
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-05-20 11:23:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 60,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19375714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarinaVivancos/pseuds/MarinaVivancos
Summary: Isadoro and Iván have known each other all their lives. They were raised together in La Portera, between the orange trees and water reservoirs, under an endless blue sky. That’s where Iván’s love for Isadoro grew, too. From the earth and water, organic and helpless.Isadoro leaves for the military when they are both eighteen, but a thread remains. Phone calls, Skype sessions, rests between tours…it’s never quite enough.After eight years, Isadoro comes back. An already complicated situation is tangled further as they rekindle the “benefits” part of their friendship. The heat between them has always been undeniable, and now it scorches through them.All seems well in the beginning, but nothing is ever so simple. Iván’s love cannot simply banish the insomniac shadows of the past, but perhaps they can face what the night brings—together.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second book of the Fox Lake Series, a published series you can find on Amazon (by Marina Vivancos). However, this can be read as a standalone.

  **PROLOGUE**

The scent of oranges, that sudden, bright burst of sunlight smell, always reminds me of childhood. Of the orange farm I grew up on, _La Portera,_ where my parents, immigrants from Argentina to the U.S., worked and lived. Of the sight of my dad. The solid, rectangular shape of him, shirtless and tanned. Of my mother, her eyes piercing from the window of the rumbling Jeep she would drive, checking on the blood and organs and bones of the working organism that is _La Portera._ Of the scorching summer heat free from school. The adventures it brought.

            And, of course, of Isadoro.

            There is no story to tell about how I met Isadoro. It happened before memories were memories, when they are just the imprint of shape and sound pressed inside your head.

            Isadoro’s parents died when he was three. He was taken in by his paternal grandfather, Frank, winning custody over Isadoro’s Brazilian side of the family due to little more than distance and jurisdiction. Although he died when Isadoro and I were twenty, Frank is chiselled coldly in memory, an imposing figure despite his rather slight frame. Then a caretaker of the grounds surrounding the worker homes near the farm, Isadoro’s grandfather was a veteran of the Vietnam war. He had been limber despite his age, his body having come back from war untouched, although his soul was altered. His face, a stone carving covered in leather; his voice locked in his throat, coming out in bursts, the rat-a-tat of it piercing the fabric of memory; his eyes watchful and still, sight landing on a target and digging its talons in. As a child, I had been terrified of him, but he had been, if not exactly nurturing, at least consistent and present in Isadoro’s upbringing.  

My childhood memories are as full of Isadoro as they are of the scent of oranges. I have never met myself without him. As if to make up for his grandfather’s discipline and silence, Isadoro was a boisterous child, transferring that energy into becoming a charming young man. Even when he was five, he had a way of getting away with things that none of us could. He’d be able to wrangle an extra piece of candy from the _titas_ —the women living and working at the farm—or convince one of the softer workers to allow him a ride on the tractor with him.

            We were constantly getting into trouble. When we were seven, Isadoro convinced me to slide into the newly laid-down plastic covering the expanse of the water reservoir that was being dug then, tying a rope to the surrounding fence to ensure our escape. The attempt failed, however. The rope snapped when I was trying to climb out and I had slid down again with a startled shout. Isadoro, who had clambered out first to pull the rope up as I climbed, immediately threw himself after me, almost barrelling into my startled body before I could get out of the way.

            “Iván! Are you okay?” he had asked frantically, and I had brushed him off with a roll of my eyes.

            “Dummy, now we’re both stuck here!” I’d said.

Someone found us five hours later, parched and sunburnt and scared. The first thing Isadoro said when we were on flat ground was a cracked-lipped, _It was my idea!_

            No one was surprised.

            Sometimes, when we were tired of running around, we would go down to one of the freshly ploughed fields with a bucket and fill it with dirt. We’d trudge up a path until we reached our favourite Mesa Oak and sit under its shade. With a pilfered sieve we’d turn the coarse dirt fine, and then mix it with water. The mixture would turn into a sister of clay; mouldable until it dried and kept its shape. I’d forget about the world when I was with the mud. From my child’s imagination sprung forth figures of fantasy, starting their adventure clumsy and malformed and then earning ferocity and sharpness with age and experience.    Mostly, Isadoro would just watch me and it would feel like casting a spell. As if not completely in control, my hands would just move, pressing and cupping the clay, running their fingers across it. It was a force beyond myself, breathing and alive.

            Falling in love with Isadoro felt a lot like that. Inevitable and organic, it was shaped without my knowledge or consent until it was suddenly there, fully formed. It came from the water, from the air, from the earth itself. Even if I had wanted to, I wouldn’t have known how to stop it, until I too was the malleable earth, shaped by that feeling. I am who I am because of Isadoro, pushed into a form by the friendship that was solidified in the impressionable years of childhood until being without the feeling was unthinkable. By the time I was sixteen, I knew every angle and curve of this unreciprocated feeling.

            I am his best friend, and he is mine, but a deeper part of me will always belong to him.

            Somehow, this imbalance doesn’t hurt. Not anymore. My skin has calloused where it rubs. Even when I used to see Isadoro with other people, his lips against theirs through the blur of alcohol and pounding music. Even when we were fifteen and he was my first real kiss. Even when I was seventeen and we fooled around, and at times it felt like I was dying, the way he would look at me, it didn’t hurt. Not really. It was too full of something else for that.

            It was therefore inevitable that when Isadoro finally left me, armoured in a uniform and destined for the arid sands of a desert that not even my hands could shape, I would lose myself a little, scraps of me left in the IED craters of Afghanistan and then Iraq.

Isadoro left, but he took me with him. I would see him in the moments between wakefulness and sleep. In those Halloween hours, when minutes turned into stretched, thin things, I would poke through to him until I too could feel the heat and the dust, the voice of his comrades, the fear, the boredom.

            I wondered which bonds would hold stronger; those forged in the fires of battle, or the ones eroded into shape by the waters of childhood.

            He would stay with me during every leave. I would take him in and take him out, stay close and watchful until he disappeared again. And when he came back for good, eight years after first being deployed, shaped by the winds of the desert instead of my hands, I took that, too.

            What else could I do and still be myself?

**CHAPTER ONE**

 

I can practically count the minutes by the twitch in Isadoro’s jaw. No one else would be able to tell, but I can see the slight strain in his mouth, the stiffness of his back, tucked against a wall. Even though we’re in the courtyard of the bar, he still checks the door every time someone comes in, head swivelling on the pike of his body. His brown eyes flicker around the room, landing on me periodically as if checking on me as much as I’m checking on him. I try to be subtle, but there are so many reasons I can’t keep my eyes off him. I take in his dark, short-cropped hair, in near-military style even though he was in the more uniform-lenient Special Ops for the last four years. Watch his jaw clench the more we stay here, the line of it darkened by stubble. I stare at his features; the wide nose I used to press to annoy him; the sweeping eyelashes I once covered in my mother’s mascara when we were nine; the square chin I’ve wanted to punch more than once in my life. Each is a familiar instrument, but their composition carries a foreign sound. A sort of still-held note that suggests a sudden crescendo, or a dip.

            “I mean, I liked it fine. It was fine. It was good, whatever. It’s just…that romance was so…” Iva makes an incomprehensible gesture with her hands. Her long wavy hair is tied up in a messy bun, strands falling around her face, swaying with the gesticulation.

            “That made sense,” Joaquin snorts. From what Iva has told me, Joaquin and she are childhood friends. Both their parents immigrated from Puerto Rico before they were born, and there is an easy comradery between them that causes an ache inside me. Although my interactions with Isadoro aren’t stiff, they are shadowed by the canyon of distance and time, and the secrets we have buried in its bed.

            “What I _mean_ is that…I was just left a little like, ‘and the award for this year’s most unnecessary heterosexual romance goes to: _Fantastic Beasts_.’”

            “Pretty sure that movie came out in 2016,” Ezra pipes up, his hand clasped around Joaquin’s, tucked in the space between them as they stand side by side. Iva rolls her eyes.

            “I stand corrected. The award for this year’s most unnecessary heterosexual romance goes to your dry pussy trying to ride my huge dick,” she says. Joaquin snorts loudly and Isadoro lets out a laugh. I turn to him, grinning. I hadn’t even realized I’d been feeling tense until the knot of it loosens at the sight of his smile.

            “Excuse me, the one here with a huge dick is _me,_ ” Ezra says haughtily, amber eyes closing and straight nose in the air. Joaquin lets out a burst of laughter and Ezra looks at him incredulously.

            “ _Excuse me!_ Why are _you_ laughing!” he says loudly. Joaquin presses the back of his free hand to his mouth, closing his eyes and shaking his head. We dissolve into giggles.

            “Honey,” Iva says, “I’m a bisexual girl. I guarantee you that my dick is bigger. And detachable. _And_ it vibrates.”

            “I’ve got one of those too,” Ezra mutters testily. A blush rises on Joaquin’s darker skin.

            “Oh, my. _Do_ tell,” Iva purrs. Ezra opens his mouth, which is immediately covered by Joaquin’s hand.

            “Nope. Nope, nope, nope,” Joaquin says, shaking his head. Iva grins, pointing her finger at his face and saying nothing. This must obviously mean something to him because he tilts his head back, groaning.

            “No!”

            “Drama queen,” I laugh, “we’ve all got one of those.” I share a look with Iva.

            “I don’t,” Isadoro says. We turn to look at him and he shrugs.

            “Well,” Iva drawls, “I don’t suppose those are standard military provisions.”

            People are usually a little weird about Isadoro’s service, either over-asking or stepping around it awkwardly. Iva, despite having met him a few hours ago, isn’t one to pussy-foot around, taking everything in stride like there’s nothing that can fell her. I suspect the confidence is partly an act, but whose isn’t?

            “I must have missed that particular care package,” Isadoro replies.

            “Wait. Are you telling me that the giant dildo I sent you didn’t get to Iraq?” I ask, faking surprise.

            “I made do,” he says, and the surprise turns a little less fake.

            “Oh, my. _Do_ tell,” Iva says again. I snort, rolling my eyes.

            “Yes. _Do_ tell,” Ezra says. Joaquin looks at him. “For purely scientific reasons, of course. Knowledge is power,” Ezra adds hastily. Now it's Joaquin’s turn to roll his eyes, but the edges of his lips tilt up in a smile.

            “I don’t kiss and tell,” Isadoro says.

            “You kiss your dildo? Kinky,” Iva says, cackling. Isadoro shakes his head, smiling as we all laugh. The slope of his wide shoulders has relaxed somewhat, and I lean against him slightly.

            Thank God for good friends.

            I’d first met Iva more than a year previously when I had started the condensed Digital and Traditional Arts program I’m currently on at Fox Lake University. Both of us being Hispanic, we’d bonded in the studio. The friendship had been a little bit of a relief. Being twenty-six years old, most of my classmates aren’t _that_ much younger than me, but I can’t help but feel that the gap between us is widened by the disparity in experiences. It makes it harder to connect, but Iva made is easy.

            Without having the money or the scholarship to go to college without including a massive amount of debt with the experience, I had chosen to go straight to work after high school. I started in miserable customer service jobs, freelancing as a digital artist on the side. Somehow, the freelancing took off, until I managed to land a position in a company that could give me a steady source of income, meagre but enough to live on when added to my job as a bartender on the weekends.

            Despite the talent my manager saw in me, everybody around me was so overqualified that the educational differences between them and me started to show. If I had had the time and energy, I would have been able to teach myself the programs that kept coming out and updating, but I didn’t. When I started lagging despite my best efforts, the boss had called me into her office, and I had been sure I was done for. I prayed for the firing to be a shot to the head, quick and painless.

Instead of a killing blow, I was given an opportunity. The company would pay for a two-year course at Fox Lake for the promise of coming back and working with them for at least three years. I had sat in the boss’s office, stunned, before snatching the opportunity up with both hands.

            The workload, I had to admit at the beginning, was tough. It was a long time since I had been in the role of student, and it showed. However, I come from a family of immigrants, meaning that hard work is in my very blood, the only example I’ve had since I was young. Not even the most tedious of classes have been able to even chip at my resolve to succeed.

            Currently in the second semester of my last year, I’m nearing the home stretch. Come summer, I’ll hand in my final projects and return to work in the fall, hopefully with a bump in salary that will allow me to drop the bartending job.

            Frankly, I can’t wait to stop feeling like I’m just treading water. These past years, ever since high school ended and Isadoro left, I’ve been trying to ignore the hand-to-mouth feeling so many people are familiar with; the sensation that I’m just one bad step away from failure.

I turn back to look at Isadoro. Now that the conversation has calmed, I can see the tension return to his shoulders, as if he can only be distracted from it for so long.

            Isadoro’s last tour ended a mere month ago, at the tail end of Christmas. As I watch him, I can’t help but catalogue the changes between this Isadoro and the one that left at eighteen years of age. It’s not that I’m surprised—not only because only a fool would expect eight years of training and war not to have an impact—but because I had seen the change in increments every time he stayed with me during his leave. The experience had been reminiscent of playing a game of _Statues_. Every time my back was turned, he would shift. Every time I turned back, he would solidify into stillness, changed into a different form. I used to dread the moment the game would be over—when the changes would be too great, and I’d lose the chance to see anything of him anymore.

            Despite how accustomed I became to him being gone, being at war and in danger, I had still followed his career closely, watching the news obsessively as I tried to fill in the gaps between what little Isadoro shared with me. My awareness of him never waned, even though his absence became normal.

            After joining the military in 2010, following the surge in troops 2009 brought, he went to boot camp and then was deployed quickly to Afghanistan. I watched as the tides changed in the following years, how troops were called back as Obama made promises in a lilting voice. I hoped the waters would pull Isadoro back to me, but almost the opposite happened. After two year-long tours, he called to tell me he had applied to join the Special Forces—the Green Berets.

The news had been numbing and infuriating at once. I couldn’t help but feel betrayed. Despite its presence in both the news and my life, war was a foreign concept to me. At times, I thought I understood Isadoro’s motivations for joining. Others, they were incomprehensible to me. I had been so unable to process the news of his desire to not only stay in combat, but go in deeper, that I had hung up on him, and refused to pick up when he called me again.

            The week that followed, before he was able to get in touch again, was filled with sleepless nights. I oscillated wildly between one extreme of the emotional spectrum to another, from one argument to the next. In the end, I could only conclude one thing: it wasn’t about me.

            Whether I understood it or not, whether I agreed with it or not, it wasn’t my decision to make. Even if it killed him.

            When he called again seven days later, I had picked up with a stone in the pit of my stomach. There had been a moment of staticky silence before I simply said, _Okay._

            It wasn’t permission. It was acquiescence.

            The training took two years. After the Killings of Yazidis in Sinjar, Isadoro was posted to Iraq in 2014. There, I had no idea what he did. If there is one thing loving someone doesn’t give you, it’s the knowledge of what is happening to them at war.

            The callous my love for Isadoro rubbed against expanded. In a place inside me without conscious thought, I believed Isadoro would never come back, either because he would be killed or because he would continue into a full military career. When T***p was elected, all hope evaporated. Hope I didn’t even know I had, buried in hidden land inside me, was unearthed and pressed into an oil-slick substance that coated everything. I couldn’t stop watching the news, as if doing so was keeping the thread between Isadoro and me tight, but the necessity was exhausting.

            And, then—maybe I should have seen it coming. Should have let myself believe, for a moment, when during Isadoro's last leave we sprawled on the couch, limbs tangled like we were teenagers again, like contact didn’t matter. When I turned to look at him, just to make an asinine comment about the show we were watching drunkenly, and I saw the look on his face. _Lost._ Fractured. The kind of exhaustion that goes so deep into the cellular composition of your soul that you begin to think curing it would necessitate a transplant of spirit, of personality, of being.

            Fear like nothing I’d ever felt struck me then. It didn’t compare with the news of his first deployment, or every jolt of terror when the TV announced a fallen soldier, or the terrified anger of his decision to join Special Ops. For the first time, it hit me in more than a vague, abstract way that maybe his living body would come back to me, but his soul wouldn’t.

            He’d seen me watching him, and for a moment that terrible look was focused on me.

            “I can’t…I…” he’d said, voice small and barely reaching me.

            “Don’t, then. Don’t. Come back,” I’d blurted tipsily, desperately.

He’d looked at me from where I was laid across his body, on his chest, and the expression had shuttered. But something lingered in his eyes.

“Isa…please.”

            It was the most selfish thing I had ever done, but nothing else was possible in that moment.

            He’d run his hand through my hair, and I’d pressed my forehead against his chest. He’d said nothing. Promised nothing.

            I don’t know if that moment influenced his decision to leave at the end of his next tour. Mosul had just been re-taken when he called to tell me. I’d been in the studio and had to sit down hard, letting the chatter around me and the familiar smell of paint and thinner fill my head. It hadn’t seemed real.

            I’d had this dream a million times before.

            For some reason, the intervening time between him telling me and him coming home had been branded by a terror I hadn’t felt since he first deployed. I was afraid his decision would curse him, increasing his chances of injury. Of death.

            “Iván?” Isadoro had prompted as I sat there in the studio, trying to comprehend.

            “Yeah,” I’d replied through a clogged throat. The silence stretched until our time was up. “Please, be careful. Come home,” I’d said as a goodbye. There had been a beat of silence.

            “I will.”

            A burst of laughter from Iva and Ezra drags me to the present. Instinctively, my eyes go to Isadoro. The tick in his jaw is back.

            “I’m beat,” I say, a half-truth. “Can we go?” Isadoro looks at me, eyebrows twitching down for a moment before he nods.

            The cold, street air away from the heated courtyard is a relief. The noise of the bar dampens and is replaced by the night. As we walk, I can see his posture relax by increments and then soften the moment we enter our apartment. The all-day heating I can now afford thanks to Isadoro greets us, and I feel myself relax too. The glow of the living room lights pop to life, revealing the clustered seating and coffee table pointed at the TV, the easel by the window, the attached kitchen. Our two bedrooms are separated by the bathroom and the boiler cabinet. It’s close enough to hear him, sometimes, moving around deep into the night, a restless series of sounds that happen more often than not.

            I hadn’t much questioned the decision of finding an apartment together. I know my mental health will be severely tested when he brings people home, but his takes precedence.

            It had been so long since we spent so much time together for such an extended period that I hadn’t known what to expect. The Isadoro that has come back from war is a mixture of new and old. I recognize his big smiles, his old jokes, the teasing about food and sex. On the surface, he seems fine. Underneath, I can feel something stirring. In the quiet of the night, his vigilant stillness almost seems chilling, simply because it is so different from the façade he tries to keep up during the day. But I know him well enough to recognize truth from fiction. Know the core of him, beyond the smiles and the charm and the stillness.

            We can’t go back to being eighteen and trying would only hurt. But I have no idea what things will look like going forward.

            I’d gotten him a job as a bouncer at the bar I still worked weekends at when Isadoro first arrived home. During the week, I take him to the dog shelter with me, which he now frequents. Part of me was scared I was pushing him too hard, but he never reacts like I feared he would. He doesn’t duck to the ground at the loud barking of the dogs. He doesn’t crumble at the potential violence of being a bouncer or the screaming of drunk patrons. I had this media-fed idea of what trauma looked like—an outward, violent thing—but I’m beginning to think whatever effect combat has had on Isadoro, it is quiet and deep.

            Despite the softening of edges arriving home from the bar has brought, I can see he’s wired and know that even if something is going on in his head, he won’t talk to me about it. All I know is at night, this Isadoro comes out. The silent one who doesn’t sleep.

We shed our layers and I sit on the couch, grabbing a sketchpad and some charcoal. I know he likes the gentle, scratchy noise of it. 

            “Weren’t you tired?” Isadoro asks.

            “Tired of being there.” I shrug. He throws me a look. There are no illusions about what I’m up to, but if it’s not said aloud, he lets me take care of him.

            He sits on the opposite end of the couch, so I can shift and put my feet on his lap. The TV flickers on. His hand wraps around my ankle. Through my fringe, I watch him relax further. I begin sketching. Him, of course, in the light of the TV and the dark, until most of the tension has left him and he can at least pretend to go to sleep.

 

**********

 

            Most of my classes are technology-based, which fits with my career in digital arts, but my favourite ones are those that depend on traditional media. There is something about the slide of a brush, the scratch of a pencil, the press of clay, that is a simple, sensory relief. In those moments of creation, my mind becomes a conduit, the river bank on which the water flows, dragging consciousness with it. My body will feel, but my mind, in a way, will be peaceful.

            I look at the self-portrait I’ve just painted. The pale skin that easily tans, my blue eyes, always a little heavy-lidded, the over-pronounced bow of my upper lip, the sharp chin, the blond hair attempting to hide my large ears. There’s something almost sweet about my face, some sleepy quality which suggests passivity, but my eyes betray me. They stare from the painting, a hard quality to them made almost disquieting by their half-lidedness.

            I only realize I’m muttering in Spanish as I re-touch the hair falling over my doppelgänger’s forehead when Iva, passing me, sighs dreamily.

            “I love hearing that accent,” she says. I look at her, smirking. I’ve always thought the Argentinian accent is the Hispanic equivalent of the Irish accent in English.

            “Tú sabes lo que’s bueno _,”_ I say, winking. She laughs.

“Are you gonna be much longer?” she asks, stopping and putting her hands on her hips. She’s short and thick and gorgeous, a semi-permanent mischievousness to her dark eyes.

            I groan, stretching. “I could take a break before I start on my _actual_ coursework,” I say, and look around the studio, a mess of materials and canvases, people milling about.

            “Cool. We can meet Ezra at _The Bean_.”

_The Bean_ is a nice campus café that has the only two things a student asks for: it’s near, and it’s cheap. I ask for a black coffee, having gotten used to the taste due to it always being the cheapest way to take your coffee, and we move to the corner table where Ezra is already sprawled. For such a slim guy, I’m always amazed at how much space he takes up.

            “Yo,” he greets as we sit, putting the phone he had been fiddling with on the table. “Anybody else feel like throwing themselves off a building even though the semester has just started?” he says with an exaggerated grimace.

            “And mess up this pretty face?” I drawl. Ezra laughs, putting his chin on his hand and fluttering his eyelashes at me.

            “It _is_ a very pretty face,” he says. I shake my head, rolling my eyes.

            “But not as pretty as mine,” Iva says, making a kissy face at both of us before laughing.

            “True that. What eyeliner is that, by the way? Joaquin would look so good in eyeliner…” Ezra says dreamily. Iva and I share a look.

            “Oh my God. You are obsessed,” Iva says, but she’s smiling.

            I know that Iva, Joaquin, and Ezra used to go to the same high school, Iva a year behind. From what I’ve learned, Iva and Joaquin have always been tight, but they didn’t really know Ezra until Joaquin got together with him the year before last; though I think they only made it official last spring.

            “But he’s so _pretty_ ,” Ezra whines.

            “Save it for the bedroom,” Iva says, which only causes Ezra’s eyes to become unfocused.

            “Oh, Lord,” I say as Iva laughs.

            The conversation veers, inevitably turning to complaining about our workload before we ban shop-talk and settle for gossip.

            “How’s Isadoro?” Ezra asks eventually, expression turning serious. I sigh a little, shrugging.

            “He seems fine,” I reply. Ezra hums, eyes sharp. He’s a lot more perceptive than his often-flippant attitude would suggest.

            It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it, but it feels like betraying Isadoro, somehow. Even with him away, it’s been me and him for a long time, and the topic of Isadoro’s mental well-being seems especially private.

            The truth is, I’m not sure how he’s doing. During the day, he functions; he eats, cleans up, goes out to the dog shelter. He even goes to his job without a problem. But he doesn’t sleep. I hear him walking around his room, or the low murmur of the TV, and it makes me wonder. Makes me remember that one time during one of his leaves. I’d stepped out of my room in the middle of the night and stopped short at the sight of him panting on the couch. His eyes had been wide, sightless, and when he turned to look at me—I’d never seen an expression like that before. Wild and splayed open, it was a primeval horror. It’d turned my lungs to ice.

I’d gone over to him slowly, the fear contagious, and he’d let me pull him into my arms and take him to my bed. He was usually resistant to such open displays of help, but this time he didn’t resist. I could barely breathe, he was shaking so hard, but I just stroked the short bristles of his hair until it subsided. We lay there, awake but silent as the sun rose, and I drifted away.

            In the morning, I’d woken alone and exhausted, but had dragged myself out of bed to find Isadoro in the kitchen. He’d avoided the subject, looking stiff and wary. I hadn’t pushed it, but I’d pressed the palm of my hand to his clothed back.

            “I’ll always be there for you, Isa. No matter what,” I’d said. He’d tensed further before his shoulders slumped a little as he’d nodded.

            It never happened again, but I’ll never forget the fear in his eyes. The helplessness.

            I’m snapped out of the memory by the chime of Ezra’s phone. He picks it up, his expression going goofy.

            “Urgh. I can tell it’s Joaquin by the look on your face,” Iva says. Ezra sticks out his tongue at her, typing away. “Tell him to bring the pasta for tonight by the way. Forgot I don’t have any,” she asks. Ezra nods.

            With a sigh, we collect our things not long after, the never-ending slew of work waiting for us. Before we part, Ezra stops me, looking at me steadily.

            “I wouldn’t treat Isadoro like glass if I were you. I don’t mean not to be considerate, but…stand your ground,” he says. I frown but nod.

            “Okay. Back to business,” Iva says as Ezra leaves and we start walking back to the studio. I sigh, nodding.

            Back to business.

 

**********

 

            When we were little, Isadoro and I used to play games of pretend. I’d be a mage, he’d be a warrior. I’d be Pikachu, he’d be Charizard. I’d be a wizard, he’d be a dragon-wrangler. On, and on, and on.

_La Portera_ was the detailed map at the start of the fantasy book. Water reservoirs were seas. Orange trees were spooky forests or thick jungles. Every hill a mountain, every dip Death Valley.

            One time, when we were eight, we’d been battling an Ash Dragon—although to those with an untrained eye it would look like the piled remnants of burnt tree clippings. We’d defeated it, of course, but I’d been terribly injured, a streak of ash across my leg depicting the infected wound. We were caught in the fantasy, and Isadoro had rushed toward me, inspecting the imaginary wound. In this iteration of the game, I was a mage and instructed Isadoro on what to get me for the poultice cure: an orange, some dirt from our favourite unploughed field, leaves from our Mesa Oak. I’d rested in the shade as Isadoro ran madly out of sight despite the scorching heat. He’d come back sweating but triumphant, looking ridiculous with his pockets heavy with dirt. He’d watched me with real concern as I mixed the orange with the dirt, applying the paste on with a leaf.

            Even at that age, I wanted that. The focus of his attention. Isadoro, all for me.

            I’d sprang to my feet, cured, and the smile he gave me was blinding.

            We’d soldiered on, deciding on a much-earned snack of mandarins. We’d eaten them below the powerlines of a cable tower. We pressed our fingers against each other’s and felt our skin buzz, electricity passing from one to the other, and smiled.

 

**********

 

            I text Isadoro to get a few things from the supermarket, Iva’s mention of food having inspired the idea to cook together.

            Despite all his years with canteen food in the army, Isadoro isn’t a bad cook. He used to spend time in the kitchens of las titas, hoping to lick a spoon but getting chores instead. They’d been an inspiration for his charm, even if his grandfather tempered that with discipline.

I can’t help but feel a little resentful towards Isadoro’s grandfather. Without him, Isadoro would never have gone off to war. Not because Frank talked about his time in Vietnam, but because the composition of his morals had seemed to have solidified in his service. I could spot the exact grooves in Isadoro’s moral compass that had been carved by how inflexible Frank had been about his idea of right and wrong.

To me, Isadoro’s desire to enlist had seemed almost like a type of stubbornness. The decision was a mollusc, clinging to its perch the more you tried to argue against it. Not the bad press following the invasion of Afghanistan, not the documentaries or the protests, or my own largely unspoken but obvious opinions on the matter, could alter what was _right._

            Even then, I didn’t think he’d do it. War—that was something which happened to other people. Until it wasn’t.

            I’d laughed when he told me he’d enlisted. I’d thought it was a joke. But he’d looked at me, expression set, and my own face had fallen. I’d been dumbfounded. And I could see it then, what the clench in his jaw meant.

            There was nothing I could do to change his mind.

            I’d swallowed my opinions whole. Even when they choked me or sat heavy in my stomach, I kept them mostly down. There was nothing much to say—we could have the conversation in our heads. I thought it was sick that he was joining a corrupt system for a faulty cause. He believed it was a duty to change corrupt systems from the inside out. I scoffed at the idea that the primary reason for the U.S. invasion had been to protect us. He maintained that regardless of motivation, the threat was real, and the damage already done—it was our responsibility to fix it.

            And on, and on, and on.

            So, we hadn’t said anything at all. It would only create fissures I couldn’t afford, fearing they would widen with his absence.

            I open the apartment door and take my coat off. It’s late, and Isadoro is home, waiting for me on the couch. He looks unfairly attractive in loose sweatpants and a sweater, but the fact barely registers in my desensitized mind. He’s flipping through one of the sketchbooks I keep lying around. He does it a lot, and I don’t mind. I keep the ones filled with drawings of him in my wardrobe. They would give me away in a heartbeat.

            We argue briefly about the recipe before going into the kitchen to cook. The scene is disgustingly domestic as we talk about our days, moving around each other to chop and stir as if this is the norm. He mentions his morning run and I heckle him for running in shorts in the January cold. He tells me about his visit to the dog shelter, his voice going soft as he talks about what he won’t admit is his favourite dog, an old mutt with scraggly fur but a no-nonsense attitude.

            “He reminds me of you,” he says and laughs when I punch him in the chest.

            “Jesus, are you made of _rocks_?” I whine, clutching my hand.

            “Drama queen.”

            “Just you wait. Imma get you one of these days. Just. You. Wait.”

            “Sure you are.”

            “Imma ninja-skills your ass.”

            “Mmhmm.”

            “God, you are so-” I go to stab him with the spatula I’m holding, but his hand catches my wrist before I can even blink. I ignore the heat trembling in the pit of my stomach.

            “Say what now?” he smirks.

            “Urgh. You are disgusting, get off,” I say, pulling my wrist from him. He lets me go.

            “If I were a dog, I’d be, like…a cross between a golden retriever and a husky,” I say, turning back to the pan.

            “That…kind of suits you, actually.”

            “And you’d be a terrier.”

            “What the fuck.”

            “Kidding,” I laugh. “You’d be like…a boxer. All chest.”

            “I’ll take that. Also, should I worry about your obsession with my chest?” he asks. I’m glad my back is turned to him.

            “Yep. That’s what I have to go through to get to your heart.”

            “Aaaaw!” he coos.

            “To _rip it out_ , asshole.”

            “You want to rip out my asshole?”

            “Oh my God. I’m going to kill you.”

            “You are very violent today.”

            “You inspire me,” I say, turning my head to stick my tongue out at him. He smiles wide and I feel weightless.

            We eat in front of the TV. I put a movie on, trying to catch Isadoro up on what he’s missed. I don’t know if it’s necessary, but I avoid anything with explosions and gore. He wouldn’t tell me if it bothered him anyway.

            After we do the dishes, I settle by the coffee table to do some homework, my back to the couch. The night is cold outside but here, it is warm and safe. The TV is on low, and I can feel Isadoro behind me, quiet and relaxed. The scene is so normal, I suddenly imagine myself doing this alone like I’ve done a million times before while he was half a world away. The fragility of this moment hits me unexpectedly, like it’ll crack under the slightest pressure.      Fear, sadness, relief—it makes me dizzy, suddenly, and I take Isadoro’s hand in mine, trying to calm myself. I keep my face turned away until he squeezes my hand. I look then, and his lips are tilted in a smile. Small, but genuine. I breathe. I press against his legs for a moment and just feel his presence.

            Here, with me.


	2. Chapter 2

 

            We build a routine.

            I go to college while he works out, or goes to the shelter, or simply stays home. I have a lot of homework, but we cook together often, and his presence is conducive to concentration. He goes to work with me on the weekends, him at the door and me behind the bar. Despite my fears, nothing bad happens. He usually goes straight home after any outing, but he socializes with me sometimes. What he never does is date.

            Isadoro had been a labelled lady-killer when we were younger. When he got his first kiss when we were twelve from the coolest girl in the class, he’d rushed to tell me about it. I remember listening raptly, grossed out and fascinated by the mere mechanics of it. Isadoro’s good looks had always been obvious, but I’d had to grow into my body and face. I’d been all elbows and ears and would have been at the bottom of the food chain if it weren’t for Isadoro.    As it was, I had my first kiss during a game of spin-the-bottle when I was fifteen. It had landed on a boy named Brandon, and he’d blushed when he kissed me. So had I.

            The party had been near _La Portera,_ and Isadoro and I had walked back in the balmy summer air. We had sneaked into my room, giggling and trying to pretend we weren’t buzzed. Isadoro slept over so often that the camp bed in my room was almost permanently unfolded and I’d thrown myself on my bed, looking giddily up at the ceiling as he sat on his.

            “Spin-the-bottle kisses don’t count as first kisses, you know,” Isadoro had said suddenly, cutting through my high. I’d turned my head to glare at him.

            “Says who?”

            “Says everyone,” he said.

I’d rolled my eyes but couldn’t help the flare of annoyance.            

“Don’t worry, I can give you your first kiss, ‘cause I’m such a good friend,” he’d offered haughtily.

            “Keep it,” I’d snorted, even though my heart had started racing.

            “You’d let Brandon kiss you, but not me?” Isadoro’s voice said. I blinked at the ceiling. I suddenly felt the alcohol, the room spinning. Or was that just the blood in my veins?       I closed my eyes. I could hear the summer bugs sing outside, and then the sound of the camp bed creak as he got up. I felt the dip of my bed and then him, over me, straddling me without touching me, just the warmth of his legs at my sides.

            I’d opened my eyes slowly. His face had tried to be mischievous, but his eyes were serious. There wasn’t a single thought in my head. Everything was rushing through me. I couldn’t speak, my mouth dry, and when I licked my lips his eyes followed the movement. I had never felt anything like the jolt that went through me then.

            As if it were happening to someone else, I watched him lean down toward me and then—a press of lips. The world became a trembling series of new experiences. The feel of his lips, dry and wet at once. The foreign feeling of them moving against me, and me trying to move against them. The brush of his breath. The moment when he settled on my stomach.

Isadoro had been right. The spin-the-bottle kiss couldn’t compare.

            My hand, magnetized by the press of our bodies, was somehow guided to the back of Isadoro’s neck. At the moment of contact, a small noise escaped Isadoro and suddenly, his tongue was in my mouth. It was wet and uncoordinated, and even then I hadn’t been sure it was just my inexperience at play.

            He had pulled back to let us breathe, and I had felt the warmth of his panting against my mouth. I couldn’t open my eyes. When he leaned down again, the kiss had been better. Smoother. I’d disappeared into it until I felt myself get hard, out of control in the way your body is not yet all yours when you’re fifteen.

            Suddenly, it had been too much. I’d pushed him away. Isadoro had looked at me with startled, dark eyes, and rolled off me, chest heaving. I’d sat back and raised my knees, a barrier between us. We’d listened to each other breathe heavily until he cleared his throat. I’d peeked at him through my fringe.

            “There. Now you’ve had your first kiss,” he’d said. I hadn’t pointed out the waver in his voice.

            We had gotten ready for bed in the darkness. I could feel his presence as I lay down in the quiet and the summer heat.

That hadn’t been the beginning of my feelings for him, but it had been the final nail in the coffin.

            In the morning, it was as if nothing had happened. Isadoro had continued his conquering ways, but never with another boy. I came out as gay a year later. No one had been much surprised.

            It isn’t that Isadoro’s current lack of partners is unusual for his situation, despite his teenage history. It’s just that casual hook-ups had been common during leave, and so their current absence is noticeable. Now, though, he’s not back for leave—he’s back for good, and maybe that changes things. A selfish, jealous part of me is glad, the one that wants to keep him for myself. Sometimes, it feels like I have too little of him. That I’d take anything he’s willing to give.

            But, as they say—be careful what you wish for.

 

**********

 

            The bar we’re at isn’t too loud, and I manage to talk to Dexter, a friend of Ezra’s he just introduced, without trouble. A girl is flirting with Isadoro beside me, and I manage to mostly ignore it. The sight of her hand brushing his bicep, the clear sound of her laugh, the way his head is tilted toward her, smile crooked and striking; it’s all familiar territory. Despite the noticeable lack of dating in his life, that status couldn't last forever.

            It isn’t until I see them disappear toward the toilets, hands clasped together to navigate the crowd, that I feel the first real twinge. I ignore that too, like I’ve done so many other things, such as the seared memory of the time I had walked into my apartment to find Isadoro fucking someone over my couch. She hadn’t seen me, head tilted down, but Isadoro had. He’d kept thrusting, eyes locked on mine. Without my will, I had catalogued everything: the grip of his hands, the curve of his biceps, the flush on his face, the wildness in his eyes.    When I’d snapped out of it, anger cauterized the arousal. I’d stepped out again, hands shaking, and hadn’t gone back until the early morning.

            He’d been up. I’d shut the door carefully behind me and just stood there for a moment, looking at him.

            “Sorry, man, I-”

            “Don’t do that again,” I’d cut in. He’d opened his mouth, but it had stayed empty of sound until it closed again. He’d shut his eyes, head shaking.

            “Alright. Sorry.”

            It had been a strange incident I couldn’t figure out.

            As I talk to Dexter, I expect Isadoro to be gone for a while, but it’s only a couple of minutes before he’s back out again, the girl disappearing to the other end of the bar. He looks shaken. There’s a crack in his façade and the dim light shining through is sickly. It casts the same shadows I saw in his eyes that terrified night I found him on the couch. My heart immediately starts pounding.

            “What-” I try to ask as he reaches us, but he cuts me off.

            “Nothing. I’m gonna get a drink,” he says, moving off even though there’s a bartender near us. I watch him, concern heightening. I turn back to Dexter.

            “Imma-” I point toward Isadoro. Dexter nods, and I turn to follow Isadoro’s retreating back. He barely glances at me when I reach him.

            “Let’s go home,” I say, unable to put it less bluntly. His broad shoulders hunch into themselves.

            “I don’t want to fucking talk about it,” he says, and the swearword startles me. I shake it off.

            “We don’t have to. We won’t. Let’s just go, yeah?” I press. For a moment, Isadoro is a statue of himself, before he simply turns around, walking out of the bar. After a moment of surprise, I follow.

            The walk home is silent. Even when he was away, I’ve never felt this distance between us. Anxiety crawls through my gut, its sharp nails piercing organs as it goes. His stride is wide and fast, and I struggle to keep up, but I’m too scared to tell him to slow down.

I’ve never feared telling Isadoro something before. Not like this.

            The silence condenses as we get home. In the moment before we turn the lights on, the darkness of the apartment is stifling.

            “Isa…” I attempt as he rips off his coat.

            “Don’t,” he says quietly, with force. My teeth click as my mouth shuts.

            A moment later, he’s disappeared into his room, the door shut firmly behind him. I stand in the living room for a long time, feeling empty.

            Helpless.

 

**********

 

            Isadoro is even quieter after that day. He rarely leaves his room, even in the evenings when I do my homework in the living room. I debate whether to intrude upon his privacy, but finally cave and call the dog shelter. They tell me they haven’t seen Isadoro in two weeks.

            Almost three weeks after the incident, I come home to find him on the couch. At first, I’m relieved, until I see him staring blankly at the screen, where the news is playing. Syria, Afghanistan, T***p. It’s not good.

            “Hey,” I say softly.

            “Hey,” he replies, but his eyes don’t shift from the screen. I move toward the couch, but his voice interrupts me.

            “I need a drink,” he says. The blank tone unsettles me as much as the words. I know all about the rate of addiction in veterans.

            “Isa…”

            “Don’t. You don’t have to…Fuck. Just…just this once, alright?” he says, running a hand against his cropped hair. I dither for a moment before thinking, _fuck it._

            I get the cheap vodka from the cupboard. There’s nothing in the fridge to mix it with, and it’s nasty as hell, but we’re not exactly making cocktails here. By the time I return to the living room, the TV is dark and silent.

            “Let’s play a drinking game,” I suggest, trying to pretend we’re not planning to get drunk at six in the evening to the tune of the hopeless depression the news can inspire these days. Isadoro snorts.

            “Sure.”

            We move the coffee table and sit on the floor next to it, pillows on the ground. We start with _Speedfacts_ , having to say facts about each other and drinking if we stumble, but we know each other so well we barely take a sip.

I am dizzily relieved at that. Not just because it slows the drunk train down, but because it assuages one of my deepest fears: that we don’t really know each other anymore. Eight years is such a long time, especially when both of us, Isadoro especially, have gone through experiences which feel like they have changed us radically. But our foundations have remained the same. We have kept in touch throughout the whole of his deployment, been glued at the hip at every leave.

It hadn’t felt like enough. For so long, I’ve felt like Isadoro was slipping away. I struggled against it, but it seemed like a battle I wasn’t trained to win, not when life itself was my opponent. But now, here, laughing and heckling each other, it feels like I have him in my hands. Like he’s _present._

            We play a few rounds of _Snap_ or, as the kids at college call it, _Snapshot_ , before moving on to _Two Truths One Lie._

            “You start,” I say to him, half-shots already poured for whoever loses.

            “Okay, let’s see…One, I stole money from Grandad-”

            “Lie,” I say immediately.

            “I haven’t even finished!”

            “Liiieee!”

            “Everybody steals a little money from their-”

            “Not you. Lie! Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie,” I shout, banging my hands on the table at each reiteration. Isadoro rolls his eyes but takes the shot. I grin at him.

            “Okay, my turn. Let’s see…I’ve never had sex with a vagina.”

            “That was a weird way of phrasing it.”

            “I was trying to be politically correct.”

            “You failed.”

            “ _Two_ , I’ve done drag.”

            “Believe it.”

            “And three, once a customer left me a $500 tip.”

            “The last one is the lie. That doesn’t happen in real life,” Isadoro chooses.

            “You’re so right,” I sigh, downing the shot.

            “When did you do drag?”

            “Ages ago, really. It was a birthday party, but I got called on stage and it was so fun. I did it a couple more times. I was pretty good at the makeup and stuff, but that shit is _hard_ ,” I say, remembering the frustration of having to ruin one eye because you can’t be bothered to fix the other. “Your turn.”

            “Hmm…Okay, once a girl called me Daddy in bed and I was sort of into it,” Isadoro admits. I gape for a moment before bursting into laughter.

            “ _What!_ Wait, why didn’t I know about this?”

            “Maybe it’s a lie.”

            “It’s not a lie. Why didn’t I know about this?”

            “It was during the leave you were caught up with your boy Rubio.”

“Okay, first of all, his name was Claudio and you know that. Second of all, I saw him like three times during your month-long leave!” I protest.

            “Whatever. _Two_ , I once went three weeks without bathing. And three…in training, a prank resulted in me having to stand to attention without any pants or underwear on,” he says.

            “Number two, you already told me about number three. Losing your memory already, grandpa?” I tease.

            “We’re the same age.”

            “You’re like three months older. You’re _old_. Drink up, loser,” I say. He laughs and drinks. “Let’s see, let’s see, let’s see,” I say, thinking. “Okay, one, I lied to you about the runway I did two years ago for that friend. It wasn’t suits. It was male lingerie,” I say. I’d been so nervous at the start, but it had been an incredible power trip. For some reason, however, when I told Isadoro it came out as a lie.

            Isadoro stills, looking at me, his mouth opening and nothing coming out. I smirk.

            “Two-”

            “Wait, are there pictures?”

            “ _Two!_ My parent’s computer didn’t just break. I downloaded some porn and it got a virus, and I got so scared I’d be found out that I smashed it.”

            “Total lie, you would have told me. Now, about those pictures-”

            “And three, I used to have a crush on Mr. Tiller.”

            “Wait, what? When we were thirteen?”

            “Yep,” I say. He pauses.

            “That guy was a complete sleaze-ball,” Isadoro says, narrowing his eyes. I gape at him.

            “Are you demented? You used to love him!”

            “Sleaze-ball. And the lie is number two. Drink.”

            “Oh my God,” I say, putting one hand on his face and taking my shot with the other. “Silence be gone!” I gasp as the vodka burns through me.

            “What the fuck are you talking about?” Isadoro laughs.

            “I meant to say ‘silence’ and ‘demon be gone’ at the same time. Shut it, I’m perfect. It’s your turn,” I say. He looks at me quietly for a moment, an odd little smile on his face.

            “I was the one who told Jamie Lanson to back off,” Isadoro says.

            “What the fuck.”

            “He was bad news, Iván.”

            “What the fuck?”

            “He was bad news,” he repeats. I gape at him. I’d had a crush on Jamie Lanson when I was sixteen and Jamie was nineteen and amazingly enough, he’d seemed interested too. Until he wasn’t. His attention had cut off abruptly and I’d been devastated. Back then, I would have been furious if I’d known that was Isadoro’s doing. In retrospect, however…yeah. Jamie Lanson had been bad news.

            “You are so overbearing, did you know that?”

            “Yep,” Isadoro replies, popping the _P_ obnoxiously.

            “Urgh, go away. What’s your next one then?”

            “I’ve jerked off in your bed.”

            “What in the fuck is going on right now.”

            “And I had a crush on your mom growing up.”

            “You _jerked off_ in my _bed_?!” I shout.

            “Is that your answer?”

            “No, obviously the lie is that you had a crush on my mom—what the fuck, man? Where did that even come from. I am disturbed.”

            “She’s hot.”

            “Stop talking _yesterday_ ,” I growl. Isadoro laughs. “Now onto more pressing matters; you _jerked off_ in my _bed_?! Why!” I say in a calm and collected voice and not at all a screech. Isadoro shrugs, taking the shot. “Asshole. You’re an asshole. Which bed?”

            “All of them.”

            “What the fuck is wrong with you?” I say but can’t help but laugh. My life is a joke. “Wait,” I say, “including this one?”

            “Okay, except this one,” Isadoro acquiesces. I sigh in relief. I struggle to sleep already—I would not be able to take it if I had to lay down where I knew Isadoro has jerked off.

            “ _Do not_ jerk off in my bed,” I order, pointing my finger in his face.

            “Can’t make any promises,” he smirks. I throw my hands in the air.

            “Uh, yeah you can! Look, read my lips. _I will not jerk off in your bed._ See? Easy!” I say. His look lingers on my lips and then drags slowly to my eyes. He hums lowly. I feel a flush from the alcohol rush to my cheeks.

            “Shut the fuck up,” I say nonsensically. “My turn. One, I jerked off in _your_ bed,” I snark. Isadoro snorts. “Two, I kind of hated your grandad.”

            “What a revelation,” Isadoro drawls.

            “Three, I’ve been Eiffel Towered,” I say. The easy smile on Isadoro’s face fades slowly as he looks at me, eyes going dark. I wait, but he says nothing.

            “So? Which one’s the lie?”

            “Number one,” he says. I nod, taking my shot. He doesn’t take his eyes off me. When the glass is back on the table, I wait for him to speak but still, nothing.

            “It’s your turn you creepy staring weirdo.”

            “Who was it?”

            “Amazingly enough, you don’t know them.”

            “Did you like it?” he asks. _None of your fucking business_ , my head says. My drunk mouth, however,

            “Yeah. I liked it.” My voice comes out soft, and the silence around us is suddenly apparent. He’s piercing me with his look. I can’t move. My chest is tight, taking half-breaths.

            I’ve seen that look before, an age ago.

            “Are you going to take your turn, or what?” I say, trying to break the spell, but he doesn’t look away.

            “One, I caught a whale shark once.”

            “That is such bullshit. You are so bad at this game.”

            “Two, I don’t actually like your lasagne,” he says. I gasp.

            “Three, I saw you fucking, once. Or, more precisely, being fucked.” His voice is quiet and low, radiating heat across my skin until it burns.

            “What?”

            “Which one’s the lie?”

            “The whale shark one. Iraq and Afghanistan are landlocked and it’s not like you’ve been taking fishing holidays,” I say distractedly.

            “Actually, Iraq is-”

            “Shut up, it’s _practically_ landlocked. What did you mean, you’ve seen me get…seen me fucking?” I ask. Isadoro shrugs. “When?”

            “When I was still in training. I came home early and went to yours. Your parents weren’t there, and you were…” His eyes don’t waver.

            I’d felt guilty about fooling around with that guy when Isadoro had been in training. Isadoro and I hadn’t fooled around in a year, he was leaving for Afghanistan soon, we weren’t and never had been in a relationship and, still. I’d felt guilty.

            I don’t know what to do with the piece of information he’s just given me. It’s in my head now, inerasable, but it has no place. Do I banish it to embarrassment? Anger? Confusion? Disregard?

            “What did you do?” my mouth decides for me. Masochistic curiosity it is.

            “Nothing,” he shrugs, watching me carefully. I’m suddenly reminded of the time I caught _him_ fucking someone. Had that been payback? But that doesn’t make sense, either with the situation or Isadoro’s personality. Then, what?

            I shake my head. I’m way too drunk for this line of questioning.

            “Okay, then. Drink up,” I say, pouring him the drink and pushing it toward him. He knocks it back. “Maybe we’ve had enough,” I suggest, feeling out of sorts.

            “One more each,” he counters. I watch him for a moment.

            “Okay.” I think. “One…I still have dreams about you sometimes.” The words just fucking come out of my mouth. In the context of the situation, the types of dreams I’m referring to is obvious.

            As he watches me, Isadoro’s eyes are darker than the darkness around us.

            “Two,” I scramble, “I love drawing hands and, uh, three, I’ve never dialled a wrong number.” What the fuck am I even saying?

            “Three,” Isadoro says.

            “Yep,” I say, and take the shot. I ignore the way he’s looking at me. I just can’t take it. “Your turn.” There’s a moment of silence.

            “I fucked guys overseas,” he says, voice quiet, but it’s a spark in a powdered keg. My head jerks up, eyes wide. Out of all of them, this is the one that floors me.

            “Two,” he goes on, “I’ve won a pie eating contest. Three, I once had to spend five hours in a tank with a guy who had some bad food the night before and had shat himself during the mission.”

            I know number two is the lie. Isadoro hates pie. It’s an easy win. Still.

            “One,” I say. Isadoro’s lips twitch.

            “Nope. Two. Drink up,” he says, but I don’t move.

            My head is stuck on the image of him fucking some faceless guy somewhere I’ve never been. I imagine the curve of his hand in the way he used to stroke my hip, or that time he gripped the hair at the nape of my neck as we fucked face-to-face. Imagine those wide, wild eyes on another guy.

            For the first time in forever, I feel the full force of jealousy. It almost feels good in a terrible way. I know it’s stupid, to have seen him hook up a hundred times with women and have _this_ tip me over the edge, but I can’t help it. I want to be the only guy he’s ever fucked—just this one, stupid, arbitrary thing for myself.

            “Why are you so surprised?” he asks.

            “I…” I look away for a moment, searching for words. My head is dizzy with alcohol and images and stupid question after stupid question. “I’ve just never seen you with a guy.”

            “ _We’ve_ fucked. And you’re a guy, last time I checked.”

            “I just thought you were…experimenting,” I try.

            “We did it a few too many times to call it experimenting, don’t you think?” he snorts.

            He’s right. I struggle to give him an answer. The one I have can’t be said aloud.

            To me, fooling around with Isadoro had been like a dream. It hadn’t felt real. I had known why I was doing it—I loved him and was gay as hell. But him? What reasons did he have if it wasn’t experimentation?

            “Okay, then,” I say. I can’t have this conversation right now. I can’t have this conversation _ever._

            I close my eyes and drink the last shot. It doesn’t even burn anymore.

            When I open them again, Isadoro is close, all alcohol heat and a look that could burn through anything. I can hear my heart beating in a distant room like a ceremonial drum.

            “What are you doing?” I say, so quietly it’s just a piece of breath between our faces.

            “Experimenting,” he says and leans in.

            I lean away.

            “We’re not kids anymore,” I say, stronger this time. I can’t do this to myself.

            “I know that,” he says. He’s still so close and I want—fuck.

            “I can’t do this, Isa. I can’t…” I trail off. He looks at me for a piercing moment before he backs off. We’re still on the floor, backs against the couch, the coffee table pushed aside. We sit there for a moment as I study his expression. There’s something odd about it. He doesn’t look spurned—he looks frustrated. Almost angry, but not at me. Like a familiar scent, it sparks a memory.

            “Isa, what happened with that girl when you, you know, at the bar those weeks ago?” I ask quietly. I feel him tense beside me, and my hand reaches around his bicep, but he doesn’t get up.

            The electric silence stretches. Time passes in the tick, tick, tick of his jaw.

            “I couldn’t do it,” he says, and as quiet as his voice is, the admission startles me. My hand is still pressed against his arm and I leave it there. I don’t say anything, giving him space to continue.

            “I just, I…I don’t fucking know, Iván. I just freaked out. She was touching me and I just…I couldn’t do it. I’ve always been able to just…I don’t know what’s happened. I’m all fucked up,” he says. He rubs his hands against his short hair and then presses his forehead against the balls of his palms.

            “Yeah, it’s almost like you’ve been to war or something,” I say sarcastically. He freezes beside me and then turns his head in his hands to look at me. Suddenly, his expression cracks and he laughs, head tilted back.

            “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he says, a smile in his voice as he looks at the ceiling.

            “Survive, like everybody else,” I say. His expression sobers as he looks at me.

            “Not everybody survives.”

            The phrase makes me cold. There’s not much I can say to that.

            “I just…I need…I want…fuck,” Isadoro says, shaking his head and turning it away from me.

            Suddenly, with the clarity gained from knowing someone this long, I understand. What Isadoro wants is a middleman between him and reality.

            “So…you can’t with a stranger, so you want us to…sleep together to, like, desensitize you. Get you ready for the real world. Like a halfway house,” I say slowly.

            “Sounds kind of fucked up when you put it like that,” Isadoro mutters.

            “Kind of is,” I reply truthfully.

            “Fuck. It’s—I don’t want you to do this out of fucking pity but, just…you’re my—you’ve always…there’s no one I trust like I trust you and I’ve put my life in people’s hands—I’ve fought alongside people I’d give anything to but you…I feel like I’m going to fall into a hole if I don’t keep going. We’ve done it before, so I just thought—but forget it. Forget it.”

            This is the first time in years Isadoro has asked me for any kind of help, that he’s really shared something about what’s going on inside him. I can’t breathe, for a moment, at the sound of the desperation in his voice. This isn’t about sex. Not really. It’s about him feeling he isn’t defective in his definition of the word. About gaining some sense of control over himself.

            I wish I could say all my motivations for wanting to say yes are selfless, but the sudden desire that lays heavy in my stomach says otherwise. I want him to, to—I just _want_ him.

            “Okay,” I say. Isadoro looks at me. “Okay. We can…But we need to sleep on this. Tomorrow, _you_ bring it up if you still want to…do it. And I’ll tell you if I do. Okay?”

            It’s the best I can do to assuage my conscience. Maybe by tomorrow, I’ll have come to my senses.

            “Okay,” he says. We look at each other, electric.

            We let the moment pass.

            All my drunkenness becomes apparent the moment I get up. I sway for a moment before stumbling to the kitchen. I put away what little we left of the vodka and return to the living room, collapsing beside Isadoro on the couch, pressed against him. He turns the TV on and I close my eyes.

            “Why did we drink so much, again?” I groan.

            “Everything sucks.”

            “Oh, yeah.”

            Isadoro snorts and a moment later I feel the ghost-press of his fingers against my wrist.

            “If you’re gonna hold my hand don’t be fucking weird about it,” I grouse, grabbing his hand. Isadoro snorts again and we stare at the flickering colours on the TV.

            It’s warm, here. I let the night take me under.

 

**********

 

I shuffle to the kitchen praying for death. Or coffee. Either would do for my hangover.

            I’m just putting some coffee in a paper filter when Isadoro comes out of his bedroom. I turn to look at him. He looks perfectly awake and hangover-free.

            “Bitch,” I tell him, just for how pretty he is.

            “You told me to bring it up today,” he says abruptly, not even giving me a minute to be alive on this horrible morning.

            “God, let me wake up, will you?” I groan. He just stands there, watching me as I put the filter in place, add water, turn it on. The pot fills up slowly and he just stands there, looking at me.

            “Fucking weirdo,” I mutter as I finally pour some coffee into the cup, treating myself to some milk so it cools down enough to drink straight away.

            I take a sip and sigh. I turn to Isadoro, leaning my back against the counter with the mug in my hands.

            “Okay,” I say, giving him the go-ahead.

            “What we talked about yesterday. I still want to, if you do,” he says. There’s no hesitation in his voice. He just looks at me and I know. I know this is a mistake. Unhealthy for the both of us, but it’s difficult not to gorge when I’ve been starved of so much of him for so long. “Do you?” he asks.

            “Yeah,” I say like I knew I would from the moment the idea was posed. “We can add sex to the many benefits of being friends with me, which include my lasagne, you tasteless cretin. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about…”

            He’s suddenly moving toward me with military purpose. When he reaches me, he takes the mug from my hands, placing it out of reach on the counter.

            “Hey, I need that to live!” I protest, but then he’s looking at me and any further words burn to ash.

            He takes a step closer. His body presses against mine, his thighs and his crotch and his waist. His hand cups my hip, slips under the shirt to rub at the bone there. His other hand wraps against the back of my neck and he just looks, and looks, and looks at me.

            I can’t breathe.

            When he finally leans in, I’m desperate for it.

            I wish I could say it wasn’t good but, fuck. It’s so, so good. The press of his lips, and his body, and the hand on my nape. It’s slow, torturous. He moves his lips and I follow, tandem tides. When I feel his tongue at the seam, my lips part and the kiss turns deep even as the pace stays the same. He presses closer, deeper, until he’s all around me, everything I know.

            I pull away to gasp for breath, to give myself a moment, but Isadoro is on a mission. He bends his knees a moment, putting his hands on the back of my thighs and pushing me onto the counter. Something clatters behind me. I hope it’s not the coffee, but the thought drifts away as Isadoro kisses me again, and again, and again.

            This is my worst fear, given pace and shape.

            He kisses me like he’s devouring me, like he’ll never get enough, and isn’t that a terrifying thought in its inaccuracy. But, for all his urgency, we kiss for an age, pressed hard against each other until I can’t help but start to grind against him. The pressure feels so good I make a small, startled noise of pleasure into his mouth. For a moment, his hold on me tightens, one hand fisting in my hair, the other pressing against the small of my back until I can barely move against him.

            “Fuck, please,” I say, breaking the kiss. The look in Isadoro’s eyes is the pounding of my heart, the race of my blood, the dark desperation inside me.

            I groan as Isadoro yanks my sleeping pants and underwear down enough to release my dick. He slows down again then, dragging the open palm of his hand against the side of my cock, the tip, before gripping it. I make another noise, pressing my forehead against the side of his neck.

            I recognize this feeling. I thought it was just being a teenager, but maybe it’s Isadoro.

            Maybe it’s us.

            “You, you…” I say, pulling at his sweatpants. They’re caught on his thick thighs, but his cock is free. I let out a breath at the sight of it.

            I don’t have Isadoro’s patience. I lick my hand and then wrap it around him. I start jerking him quick, tight, and he twitches against me, moaning. Fuck, that sound.

            There’s nothing in this world I want more than to see him come.

            “Wait, wait,” he says, however, pushing my hand away. For a second, I’m worried, thinking that whatever happened with the girl at the bar is reoccurring, but he just steps closer, wrapping his large hand half around both of our dicks as they’re pressed together. He’s tall enough not to make the angle awkward despite the counter, and the feeling of his cock against mine, his hand sliding and pressing us together, sends a shudder through me.

There’s not an ounce of hesitation or upset on his face. Quite the opposite; he seems completely enthralled at the sight of our cocks in his hand as I squirm on the counter.

            I run both my hands against his cropped hair, scratching my nails against his scalp. My elbows rest on his wide shoulders, a cradle, as I press my forehead to his temple. He tilts his face toward me. If you’re generous, you could call the touch of our lips a kiss, but it’s more a press of tongue and breath, wet and perfect.

            “Iván,” he says, and it does me in. The orgasm shudders through me, loosening the walls and the barriers of me, crumbling me down.

            I open my eyes and see him come too. Watch the furrowing of his brow, the flutter of his eyelashes, the soft noise that escapes the parting of his wet lips.

            I shouldn’t want anything in this moment, and yet desire still eats away at me, a creature bred to be insatiable by years of neglect.

            We stay there for a while, cooling come and sweat and breath. When we untangle, his expression is steady, devoid of regret. He cleans us up perfunctorily with a dish towel before lifting our pants. Reaching over, he grabs my coffee, handing it back to me.

            “Well, now it’s cold,” I grumble, but it’s just to cover up how shaken I am.

            I’m fucked. I’m so fucked.

 

**********

 

            The summer before Isadoro was finally deployed had run on borrowed time. I hadn’t applied to college but had gotten a summer job in _La Portera_ while I figured out what to do with my life. After work, I would go to the beach with Isadoro, pretending this was any other summer and that adulthood wasn’t looming in September for both of us.

            One night, we went down to the beach when it was late and dark. The sea was a pool of ink, the sound of it washing in and out a secret call. On Isadoro’s dare, we’d stripped our clothes and ran into the water, the coolness a relief from the thick summer air.

            The half-moon had been a bowl of rice perched on the black. We’d swam around, free in the salt and the waves, pulling each other under in a familiar game.

            We’d been our child selves, free of the ties tugging at us beyond the water.

            When we tired and let ourselves drift, I remember Isadoro swimming close to me. Remember the moon in his eyes. The way his wet skin had felt against mine. It had almost been a kiss. Almost. But I couldn’t do that to myself. Not again. Not when he was leaving and he wasn’t in love with me back.

            Who would have thought that I would be able to resist the pull of the moon at eighteen, and cave so many years later, caught completely in its tide.

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

I can’t help the tension that has me on edge during the next few days. Isadoro doesn’t initiate anything, and I don’t know if I’m relieved or not. I have trouble concentrating in class and isn’t that ironic. After years of learning how to compartmentalize Isadoro, he’s seeping through every crack.

            As much as I like to hang out with the people at college, sometimes they’re just too bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to digest. Sometimes, what I need is to hang out with someone closer to my age and life experience, that’s been chewed up and spit out a couple of times by life.

            I knock on Jacqueline’s—Jack’s—door. A thirty-year-old police officer in the city, she’s seen what the world really has to offer. Estranged from her father after she ran away from home with her twin brother after he came out, she has a resilience and drive anybody would admire.

            “Come in!” Jack shouts from inside her apartment instead of opening the door.

            “Aren’t you in the police force? Shouldn’t you be a little more careful about stranger danger?” I tease. Jack is in the kitchen fixing snacks, and I go straight in to put the six-pack I brought into the fridge.

            “I’m going to stranger danger your ass. Sit down, the game’s about to start.”

            “You want a beer?”

            “I’ve got a pair in there,” she says, her short, dark hair bobbing a little as she nods at the freezer. She’s tall and wiry, chin pointy and features a little small for her face, giving her a sharp look she puts to good use. Though it’s covered up now, I know there’s a sleeve of tattoos on one of her arms, and the beginning of another on the other. She’s also one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. I’ve never seen her in action, but I can guess she’s one hell of a cop.

            We sit through the first half of the game in exasperated concentration as our team trails behind on the scoreboard. The opposition scores just before half-time is called, and we both groan.

            “Beer,” Jack says, and I laugh, taking the empty ones back to the kitchen and getting us a fresh pair.

            “Tough week?” I ask.

            “Drunk puked on me yesterday. I fucking hate when that happens,” she grouses. I grimace.

            “Ew.”

            “Bah. It could have been worse.”

            “ _How?_ ”

            “I didn’t get any on my lips this time.”

            “Oh my fucking God. That is the grossest thing I’ve ever heard. Why is there so much puke involved in your job!” I groan.

            “Well, that was still when I was a beat cop but, yeah. The job is a lot less glamorous than advertised.”

            “You love it, though.”

            “Love’s a strong word but, yeah. I can’t live without it. Think I’m about to get promoted too,” she says casually. I perk up, turning fully on the couch to face her.

            “What! Jack! Congrats!” I say, punching her on the arm. She turns her head from where it's resting on the back of the couch, her body slumped into the cushions.

            “Thanks,” she says. “It’s gonna be horrible. I can’t wait,” she laughs. I grin.

            “You deserve it. We’ll celebrate when it happens!”

            “Knock on wood,” she says, but she’s smiling too. “How’s it going with you, then? How’s Isadoro?” she asks. I immediately stiffen a little, turning back to face the TV.

            “He’s okay,” I say. There’s a pause.

            “You fucked him, didn’t you?” Jack says. I turn to look at her, mouth open in surprise.

            “How…” I say. She snorts.

“Congrats.” She lifts her beer, but I don’t move to meet her. She lowers it slowly. “Oh, fuck. You’ve done something stupid, haven’t you?”

I want to protest, but… “It’s casual. We’re just…you know. It’s casual,” I try. There’s a beat of silence.

            “So…You’re having a casual relationship with the childhood friend you’ve been in love with since forever and that’s currently trying to adjust to civilian life after doing, what, five tours?”

            “Eight, not counting the two years of Special Ops training. Those tours are shorter,” I say.

            “Fuck, eight tours? Jesus. Well, Iván, that all sounds…fucking stupid.”

            “Fuck!” I groan, thumping the back of my head against the couch.

            “What the fuck were you thinking?” she asks, and isn’t that the question of the century?

            “I…It’s just…When he was away, I tried not to think about it. Where he was, what he was doing. But there were these moments, sometimes. Maybe it was too long a gap between calls, or it was late at night or, just…and I’d get this feeling, this eerie certainty that he was dead, or was injured. That he could be dead, and I just _wouldn’t know_. I’d think, what was the last thing I said to him? Even though he doesn’t know I’m in love with him, does he know how much I love him?

“He would redeploy and redeploy and there came a point where I thought he’d never stop. I thought he’d be a career military man, going up the ranks, or that he would keep going until he died. But, now, he’s _here_. He’s here to stay. I still can’t believe it. I have this awful fear he’ll change his mind and redeploy, or go private, or...But, for now, he’s here. And he just…offered. I’m so used to thinking of Isa as a moment from slipping away that I just…I can’t…I’m not saying it’s a good idea, but I’ll regret it more if I say no.” It all just comes out of me.

            Silence falls for a moment. “Damn,” Jack says eventually. “Okay. I get you.” Her voice is soft, a balm. A part of me had needed some kind of permission, or at least the validation of saying, yes, what I’m doing is stupid but, fuck, can you blame me?

            The conversation veers off, but my own words linger inside me, truths given shape and weight.

            I’ll make the most of this for as long as it lasts.

 

**********

 

            It’s been four days since the hand job. In the beginning, I’m tense and watchful, wanting but not wanting something to happen. Between school and work though, the apprehension gets buried. It’s as if that is exactly what he’s waiting for—a relaxation of defences in order to strike.

            It’s late and the TV is on, some nonsensical program neither one of us is really watching. I step between the couch and the coffee table, bending to place the drinks I just grabbed from the kitchen on the table, when the palm of his hand brushes slightly against my clothed thigh. I look at him and see the twitch at the corner of his mouth.

            I’m in trouble.

            I let go of the drinks and his hand goes to the back of my thigh, pulling me closer. I stumble slightly until I’m right in front of him, looking down at his face as his wide hands hold my hips.

            We just look at each other for a moment before he presses his thumbs against my hip bones. He pulls me onto his lap and I just go, a collapsing house of cards. I wish he’d stop looking at me with those piercing eyes, but something stops me from kissing him first. Some old, worn instinct of repression.

            He leans in, but not toward my mouth. Instead, his lips land on the vulnerable skin of my neck. He kisses me softly, one firefly kiss after another. I close my eyes, but the tenderness is unbearable. It cuts through my inaction and I pull away only to yank him into a real kiss.

            Isadoro goes with it, but I’m already thrown off balance. I don’t want to think about anything, but my head is too full of him. His hands run across my back and I slide further forward, our crotches pressing. I grind against him, and one of his hands trail down to knead my ass.

            “Oh fuck,” I pant before he pulls me into the next kiss.

            It shouldn’t be possible, to be this desperate this quickly for someone. To want them this much.

            I need more. This time, I’m the one who pulls out our dicks, but I ignore mine, wrapping my hand around his thick cock. I know exactly what I want.

            I go to slide off and get on my knees, but he stops me. I look at him, raising my eyebrows.

            “Seriously? You’re turning down a blowjob?” I ask. Isadoro huffs a laugh.

            “Just—wait a second,” he says, pulling me close again. He wraps me in his arms, drawing me into another slow, slow kiss, but I can’t help it. My hands reach between us and he stops me again, grabbing my wrists and then pinning them to the small of my back in one of his large hands.

            “Fuck, fuck,” I say, grinding forward, and he doesn’t halt the movement, his other hand in my hair as he kisses me deeply.

            I’m helpless against him.

            “Please,” I say eventually. “Please, let me suck you off,” I say against his lips.

            “Jesus,” he groans, emboldening me.

            “Don’t you want to come in my mouth?” I murmur in his ear. 

            “Fuck,” he says, and my hair and wrists are released. I’m on my knees in an instant. I’m not here to tease, and I swallow him down, dragging my tongue against the vein on the underside. I can feel the tension in his thighs as he tries not to jerk up, but I push at his hips.

            I want him to fuck my mouth. I want to _feel_ it.

            His hand holds the back of my neck as he lifts his hips. I gag immediately, but I don’t let him stop. I’m good at this, I just need to calm down.

He finds a pace quickly and thrusts in and out of my mouth, my throat, easy and deep. There’s always been a rhythm to us, even in bed when we were teenagers and just figuring this stuff out.

            It’s always been so goddamn easy.

            I feel it when his hips start to stutter a little and I moan, wanting it. I squeeze his thighs and then trail my hands up, stroking the tightness of his balls. A moment later, he comes. I’ve never been the biggest fan of guys coming in my mouth but, right now, it’s exactly what I want. I want to feel the twitch and the taste of it, how personal and inescapable it is. Feel him soften slightly, lapping at him and seeing his abs where his shirt has ridden up twitch with overstimulation.

            “Come here,” he says as he pulls me up. My cock is wet with my own pre-come, and the moan I let out when he wraps his hand around it is long and dirty.

            “Fuck,” he says, and kisses me, lapping at the come in my mouth.

            His hand is quick and tight as he jerks me, his other arm coming around to press me close. He pulls away from the kiss and looks at me intently, as if he can see through to my core.

            I close my eyes, but I can still feel him looking.

            I come with his presence all around me, an arrow through my lungs.

            When I come down, I’m slumped against him. I’m still wrapped up in him, one of his hands trailing through my hair. We shift slightly until we’re kissing, slow and languid.

            “You,” he says quietly, a breath of air. I nuzzle against him, mind blank.

            “Me, what?” I mumble.

            “You,” he repeats simply and kisses me again.

 

**********

 

            “Why do we even need these many options?” Isadoro grumbles, looking at the grocery shelves packed to the brim with food.

            “Capitalist freedom,” I reply, following it with an eagle’s caw. Isadoro snorts, looking at me. “You can wait outside if you want,” I suggest, even though I know what his reaction will be.

            “I can go grocery shopping, Iván,” he says, frowning. I shrug.

            I’ve sent him to the smaller shop near our apartment a few times, but we’re currently in one of the bigger retailers. I know these environments stress him out, but he had insisted on coming. He stands like a steel pole, eyes trained ahead even as he seems to be aware of his surroundings. He’s so tense he’s making _me_ nervous.

            I give him jobs to do, hoping to keep him distracted. I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do, or if I’m treating him like a child, or—the constant second-guessing is exhausting.

            I’m used to worrying about Isadoro, but it’s different having him here. Before, my worries were both more solid and yet more abstract at the same time. Now, I’m constantly confronted with the evidence of whatever it is he’s holding inside, but no opportunity to help. I can’t seem to strike the balance between pushing too much or not enough, and the results leave me frustrated.

            By the time we leave the supermarket we’re both exhausted and cranky. We load my car and get in, me behind the wheel.

            I know things have changed, but I can’t gauge how much. Time and distance have distorted my perception. I wish he would just talk to me. Not about what happened during combat—not unless he wants that, which I’m sure he doesn’t—but about what he’s thinking about now. How he’s feeling and coping. How I fit into it all.

            I’m lost in thought when a car cuts me off. We’re in the city, so it’s not an uncommon occurrence. I just sigh and slow down. Isadoro, though, reacts instantly. He yanks hard at the door, the handle making a loud noise as it hits the lock. I startle, looking over. Isadoro looks furious in a way I’ve rarely seen in my life.

            “Open the door,” he says.

            “Are you fucking serious right now?” I say, trying to split my attention between him and the slowly moving cars around me as we stop at another light.

            “Open the fucking door!” he screams. I flinch at the unexpected volume. I don’t think he’s ever shouted at me like that before.

            “Jesus, Isadoro!” I shout back, more out of fear than anger.

            “Open the door!” he says again, grabbing at me for a moment before releasing me and then yanking at the handle madly. I open my mouth to fight back, but an odd, out-of-body experience takes over me. I take a deep breath.

            “Isa, you’re scaring me. You need to calm down,” I say as levelly as possible. “You’re putting us in danger. You can be angry at home, but not in the car. Okay?” I glance at him. He’s glaring, jaw clenched, but he doesn’t say anything else. I focus ahead, leaving him to calm himself down.

            The rest of the drive is silent. I’m barely thinking, rattled by the event. It’s not like he lashed out physically or even swore at me. Lots of people get road rage, I try to reason with myself, but that’s not what’s got me so shaken. He’s never screamed at me like that, and it was so easily sparked. Is that what’s inside him all the time?

            When we get home, he grabs a few grocery bags and strides upstairs. I move more slowly, taking a moment inside the car to collect myself before trudging upstairs. I’m expecting a fight, or at least to talk, but when I get into the apartment the bags are in the kitchen and Isadoro is nowhere to be seen. I walk towards his room, plastic bags rustling. His door is shut. It’s silent inside. I move towards the kitchen. 

            Mindlessly, I put the groceries away. Soup, toilet paper, jerkins. I divide the ground meat and put it into baggies to freeze. I replace the sink sponge.

            When I’m done, I just stand there in the middle of the kitchen, looking at Isadoro’s closed door. Slowly, I move toward it and knock on the wood.

            “Isa?” I say softly. There’s no response. I wait, my ear tilted toward the room, but there’s just silence.

            With a sigh, I turn away.

 

*****

 

            My heart jumps when I hear the click of Isadoro’s door opening. I try not to react, watching the TV as I strain to hear. My stomach drops as Isadoro goes to the bathroom, but when he comes out again he moves toward the living room. I turn to look at him, lowering the volume on the TV to a murmur.

            Isadoro is cast in the glow of the night lamps. It’s late, and he’s changed into softer clothes. His face is weary as he looks at me, even though his posture is rigid and proud.

            “I’m sorry,” he says simply. I take a deep breath and then let it out slowly. I’ve had plenty of time to think.

            “I get it, Isadoro. I get that… You don’t want to talk about it, but I understand that you’re, that you’ve been…that there are going to be some bumps in the road, but. You can’t do that. What you—the war and everything, I get it, but it doesn’t give you a free pass to do whatever. I’m not gonna lie and tell you I’m going to leave if you continue because I don’t know if that’s true. You’re my best friend and I…It’s you and me, as far as I’m concerned. But you can’t shout at me like that, especially not when I’m driving in the car. You can be angry, I get that. But that doesn’t give you an excuse to scream at me.” My words come out level and stern, but I’m tired. I’m so tired.

            Isadoro stands there for a moment. It’s him and me in this apartment, in the bubble of the night, the flickering colours of the TV and the glow of the lamps. Time stills, and then cracks. His posture slumps. He walks toward me, wrapping his arms around me as soon as he sits on the couch. I go easily, filling with relief.

            I hold him back. We sit there, wrapped in each other until the murmur of his voice makes me lean away.

            “Sometimes…I’m scared,” his voice says. I look at his face.

            “Of what?” I ask just as quietly. He shakes his head, but answers.

            “That I’m gonna…do something,” he says, not looking at me. I frown.

            “Isa, what are you talking about? You would never hurt me,” I say, but he shakes his head.

            “I don’t mean that. It’s not about hurting or killing. It’s about just… _doing_. Acting, before I can fully think it through. I’m so used to just acting. Back there, everything was contained by the directives, but in the moment, you just had to act. Your head had to be in one place. If someone falls in front of you, you don’t even pause. There’s you, and there’s the mission and I just…don’t know how to turn it off,” he says. I sit quietly for a moment. This is the most he’s ever admitted to me.

            “Isa, there are services out there, the V.A.-” I start, but he shuts down immediately. I backtrack. Now, during the first time he’s opened up, is not the time to press. “Or I could help. We could have a, like, system. To pull you back, or something. Like…I say one, and you have to say two and I say three and you say four until ten and then…we can go through the consequences or something. Like, one, you get out of the car…” I start and then point at him. He looks at me for a moment.

            “Two, I beat the guy up for being an asshole,” he says. I fight the urge to roll my eyes.

            “Three, the guy is in a moving car. So am I. You open the door, I have to break, we collide, I get hurt-”

            “Okay, okay,” he says. I raise my eyebrows. “It was stupid, I get it. I just…”

            “ _I_ get it, but…let’s just try this next time, okay?”

            “Okay.”

            “Okay,” I repeat softly and press our foreheads together. I feel him sigh against me. I close my eyes.

 

**********

 

            On Sunday, we take a walk through the Mallowston forest. The day is clear and cold. It smells like ice, even though it hasn’t snowed. Our breaths bloom white flowers in front of us. We follow a rocky dirt path through the pines and skeleton trees. The sun shines through, fragmented against our hair and skin and clothes. The light shines through Isadoro’s eyes, bright and untroubled.

            We reach a ridge and stop to look at the landscape. The forest seems to go on forever. Green, brown, blue. It’s all part of something.

            I feel Isadoro’s fingers against mine. Without looking, I take his hand.

            I breathe.

 

**********

 

            The apartment is a warm haven from the cold. It’s late, and the alcohol in my veins is a low buzz inside me. I shut the front door behind me and take off my coat, hanging it carefully on its hook. I take off my shoes, resting them beside the door. When I walk towards the living room, my steps are almost silent, but Isadoro’s head is turned towards me. He’s sitting in the almost dark. In the phantom light of the TV, he looks like an apparition. These past years I’ve seen him more in dreams than in real life. Now, he seems to have appeared from the darkness of the night.

            I walk toward the couch and wrap myself around Isadoro from behind. I kiss his neck and feel his hand come to rest on one of my arms.

            He’s warm. The scent of him could take me back to childhood.

            “I want you to fuck me,” I say into his skin, biting there, a punctuation. He twists slightly to look at me and I kiss him, my tongue dragging across his lips. When I pull away, he wastes no time on untangling from me. I take a step back and he jumps over the back of the couch.

            “Oh, please,” I say, rolling my eyes at the demonstration, but heat burns inside.

            He pulls me toward him and kisses me again. I open my mouth, my arms, pressing closer. His hand cradles the back of my head, tilts it slightly and I go easily, following his pace.

            After a few moments, he pulls back and looks at me. I let him, feeling soft and malleable in his hands.

            “Bedroom,” I murmur. He nods but kisses me again until the darkness and the heat have melted us together.

            We go to my room. I lay on the bed and he stretches over me, reaching an arm out to turn on the bedside lamp. The glow lengthens the shadows of his eyelashes, of the dip below his bottom lip.

            He settles between my legs and I wind them around him, nudging him forward. He lets himself fall with his forearms bracketing my head. He runs his hand through my hair, looking at me, before leaning down. My hands slide across his neck, his shoulders, the moving muscles of his back. I hum into the kiss and I can feel his little smile against me.

            It goes into the night. He looks, and kisses, and looks at me. I want to ask him what he’s searching for, but I want to watch him too.

            He takes off my clothes and then his and slides down my body with his calloused hands. I’m already hard, have been for a while, and I squirm at the rake of his skin. He gives the tip of my dick a cursory lick and I choke on a fragmented _ah,_ but then he’s gone again.

            The crinkle of the condom and click of the lube’s lid is like another of my sounds. I shift impatiently on the bed and then still as I feel slick fingers at my entrance.

            Like ever, he goes slow.

            As the first finger slides in, an errant thought courses through me. This is the first time since we were seventeen that he’s been inside me. Nearly a decade ago. We were children then, in all the ways that count.

            “Come on,” I say, and he pushes in another. I grind against his hand, but he doesn’t pick up the pace. He opens me up slowly. Two fingers, three. He watches them disappear inside me like he’s entranced. I get lost in the intensity of it, in the feel of the brushing pressure against my prostate, until I can’t take it anymore.

            “Come on. Come on, don’t you want to fuck me? Isa…” I move my hips, fucking myself harder on his thick fingers. I hear him grunt, letting me move before slipping out and grabbing my hips, slippery and desperate.

            I open my eyes. Look at the flush on his face, the sweat on his hairline from nothing more than fingering me. His eyes are orange, brown, black. He lifts me up with one hand and guides himself in with the other.

            The noise that comes out of me as he pushes in has been shredded by years of neglect. Fuck, he’s thick, filling me fully.

            When he starts moving, it’s with him all around me. My hips are hitched up to meet him on his knees, but he’s curved over me. Even when I close my eyes, I can feel him everywhere. He fucks me with deep, short thrusts that punch little noises out of me, and he picks them up from my lips, licking them from my tongue and my mouth.

At this pace, the burning is such a gradual rise it almost surprises me when it scorches through. I can’t breathe for a moment as I feel my body clench and move without my permission, just feeling for a moment, all this pleasure and Isadoro at my core.

            “Iván, Iván…” Isadoro is saying as he continues fucking into me as I come, and I grasp at him, encouraging and overstimulated until he comes too. He hunches forward, a tighter shell around me as he moans into my neck. I close my eyes and breathe him in.

            Isadoro slumps to the side, slipping out of me. He gets up a moment to throw the condom in the trash as I wipe myself with the corner of the sheet and then fling it to the side.

When he comes back he pulls me toward him, stroking his hands across my skin. I hold him back, letting myself drift.

            It’s quiet and peaceful here.

            I don’t know how much time has passed when I’m nudged from my doze by Isadoro untangling himself from me and getting up.

            “Where are you going?” I mumble, blinking sleepily.

            “Gonna watch some TV.” I can hear him shuffle around for his clothes.

            “It’s late,” I protest half-heartedly, knowing my argument is going to be of no use.

            “I’m not tired. Sleep,” he says, kissing me on the temple before moving away. I frown. I watch him leave until he disappears with a click of the door.


	4. Chapter 4

One day we go to the biggest city park, heading for the lake.

            “I used to come here as often as I could when I was like…twenty? All my jobs were so shitty then, I came here to people watch and draw, just to feel like I was doing _something_ I loved, you know?” I say, looking around.

I haven’t been here for a while, but the landscape looks familiar. The expanse of grass, the ring of trees around us, cradling the large lake we’re heading towards. The lake is surrounded by a stone pathway, lifted so you have to look down at the dark water.

            “Yeah, I remember how tired you always looked when we Skyped. It worried me,” Isadoro admits. I almost laugh at the concept of Isadoro being worried about me for having one too many jobs while he was at war.

            “Remember how simple life seemed for adults when we were children? Like, even when we knew they had troubles it was like, ‘they make the rules, so they must have everything under control’. If someone looked like an adult, they _were_ an adult. I still feel like I’m sort of playing pretend. It’s not that I knew exactly what I was gonna be but, I don’t know…I wouldn’t have imagined this path to getting here. I guess it’s different for you, you always said you’d be a soldier,” I muse. Isadoro tilts his head to the side, considering, as we finally reach the stone pathway and start walking around the lake.

            “In a way…but I don’t think you can truly know what the military will really be like, you know? All the details, like…having to wash yourself with wipes or the smell when you burn the trash or the feeling of your helmet against your head when it’s boiling out. It’s one of those things theory can’t really prepare you for, and that’s life. I mean, you say I always wanted to be a soldier, but you’ve always been an artist. It’s just all the complicated parts of life that you can’t imagine as a kid.”

            “Yeah, I get you. But I don’t know if I would call me an _artist_.”

            “I would. Iván, you dumbass, you’re amazing. Sometimes I look at one of your drawings or paintings or sculptures and it’s like…I don’t know. Something happens. I’m standing there but a part of me goes somewhere else. Somewhere _you_ ,” he says.

            I can feel the exact rhythm of my heart pumping in my chest. I’m speechless for a moment, Isadoro’s words digging under my skin. It’s not like he’s stingy with praise, but the compliment was so precise it knocks the breath out of me for a moment.

            “Well…thanks,” I say, changing the subject quickly to avoid the awkwardness inherent in accepting praise that means so much to you. “Well, as much fun as that illusion could be, I definitely wouldn’t go back to being a kid. There’s no way I’m going through the bullshit that is puberty again, even if it was nice when our biggest fear was quicksand.”

            Isadoro laughs. “Shit, everything was quicksand back then. And volcanoes. Instead of adult worries, the world was filled with _danger_.”

            “Why the hell was quicksand such a big thing back then? I swear, I haven’t even thought about quicksand since I was thirteen. I blame cartoons. Or maybe it was school.”

            “Maybe they were preparing us for growing up. Maybe quicksand was a metaphor for adulthood all along,” Isadoro says in a philosophizing voice.

            “Wow. That was deep,” I deadpan. Isadoro laughs. “Point is, I’m not going back to my painfully-awkward self.”

            “You weren’t _that_ awkward,” Isadoro protests. I look at him.

            “Uh, yes I was. Remember thirteen-year-old-me? Not a good look,” I say. Isadoro laughs.

            “Okay, maybe I’m not gonna argue too hard on that point.”

            “How dare you?” I gasp. He snorts.

“But you definitely grew into yourself by the time you were seventeen.”

            “Tell that to all the boys who weren’t in my yard.”

            “Man, you were so clueless. Remember Xander?” I nod. I’ve only ever known one guy with that name. “Total crush on you,” Isadoro says with complete confidence.

            “He did not!”

            “Oh my God. That you’re protesting the fact blows my mind. He had it so bad for you,” he says. I gape in silence as I try to process this fact.

            “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me? He was hot as hell!” I burst out suddenly. I look at him, flapping my arms. He just looks straight ahead for a long moment as we walk.

            “It was so obvious I thought you were letting him down gently, I guess,” he says eventually. I huff.

            “Some friend you are. I could have been getting tail all that time.”

            “You _were_ getting tail,” he reminds me and oh, yeah, that was when we had started fooling around

            “Well, more tail,” I say, and the words are barely out of my mouth when Isadoro grabs the front of my coat, pulling me toward him. Startled, I stumble into him.

            “You needed more tail?” he says. The teasing is soft, but it’s hiding a structure of iron.

            I blink at him and he leans down. Our cheeks and lips are cold, but the inside of his mouth is warm and wet.

            I don’t think we’ve ever kissed in public before.

            When we part, I’m a little dazed. He pulls me with him as we start walking again, his arm over my shoulder. I don’t push him off. He’s always been tactile with me.

            “You know,” he starts after we’ve walked almost half-around the lake, “I thought for sure you’d be hitched by the time I was out.” He says it softly like he’s sharing a secret. I snort.

            “First of all, that makes you sound like you’ve been in prison. Second of all, I’m only twenty-six, what the hell.”

            “Yeah, but…I don’t know.”

            “I’m such a catch you thought someone would have snatched me up by now?” I say with a teasing grin, but his expression remains serious.

            “Yeah,” he says simply. I narrow my eyes at him.

            “You’re being fucking weird today,” I tell him, but I wrap an arm around his middle. Isadoro laughs.

“This is what I’m always like.”

            When we’ve walked around enough to tire ourselves into hunger, we go to a nearby hotdog stand and order two with everything. We have to take off our gloves to eat and by the time I've finished the tips of my fingers are aching.

            “I need to wash my hands,” I say, but Isadoro is busy buying some plain buns.

            “What’s that for?” I ask as we head to the toilets.

            “To feed the geese,” he explains. I wrinkle my nose.

            “Geese are evil and don’t deserve hotdog buns,” I say. Isadoro looks at me with judgey eyes.

            “Are you serious?”

            “…No,” I say, even though I totally was.

            “I thought you liked animals?”

            “I love animals! But geese aren’t animals. They’re demons. Everybody knows this Isadoro, wake up!”

            “Oh my God.”

            After going to the bathroom, we head to another lake, this one with a natural shore where a gaggle of geese are bunched together, squawking at each other and being a general nuisance.

I accept one of the hot dog buns and start throwing pieces at the birds reluctantly. Meanwhile, Isadoro is tossing pieces at them carefully, making sure everybody gets some even though they’re fighting over the scraps like the vicious animals they are.

Isadoro catches me looking at him and my expression must be a little more than mocking because he raises his eyebrows at me.

            “What!” I say, throwing my last piece of bread. It hits one of the birds on the head and I giggle a little. Isadoro shakes his head.

            “It was an accident! And it’s freaking hotdog bread, come on,” I say. Isadoro smiles. I do not like the look in his eyes at all.

            He turns toward me and starts throwing the bread right at my feet.

            “What are you doing?” I say, backpedalling, but he keeps going. “Stop!” I say, but the geese are already charging. I scream as one of them starts flapping its massive wings right in front of me, running away. When I turn back to look at Isadoro, he’s doubled over, laughing.

            “Fucking asshole!” I shout at him, even though I’m kind of laughing too. I run over and shove him hard. He topples over easily, already unbalanced by his moronic laughing.

            He’s been startled into silence, and as he gets up I see that the side he landed on is covered in geese shit. Now, I’m the one who starts laughing, wrapping my arm around my middle and tilting my head back.

            When I look back at him, however, he’s almost all the way up. I recognize the glint in his eyes. I immediately stop laughing.

            “Do not come near me. Do. Not. Come. _Near. Me.”_ I squeal the last words as Isadoro charges me and I sprint away. It takes him an embarrassingly short amount of time to catch me, however. As soon as he does, he starts rubbing his side against me, getting the shit on my jacket too.

            “No!” I howl.

            “Payback is geese shit,” he grins.

            We return home cold, dirty, but grinning.

            “Dibs on the shower!” I say as soon as we get home.

            “You are a child,” he laughs. I stick my tongue out at him.

            “Suck it, poophead.”

            I lounge on his bed after I take my shower, back against the mattress with my feet on the floor. I’ve just put some sweatpants on and flip through my phone nonchalantly as I wait. I hear the bathroom door open and put the phone down, propping myself up on my elbows.

Isadoro pauses as soon as he steps into the room. His eyes go straight to me, looking down my mostly-prone body and then up again. I smirk, widening my knees a little. His eyes go dark and he looks so good my mouth waters. There’s just a white towel around his waist, and the expanse of muscle and skin on display has me honest-to-god hardening in my sweatpants. Isadoro must notice because it’s his turn to smirk.

            “Jerk,” I say, for looking so fucking delicious and being so many steps away. I cup myself through the soft cloth, tilting my head back and moaning, drawing the noise out.

            It works. Isadoro flings the towel to the side and prowls toward me. His dick hangs heavy and thick between his legs.

            “Yeah,” I grunt. As soon as Isadoro reaches me, he grabs hold of my sweatpants and yanks them down and off in almost one movement.

            “Jesus!” I say, heart thundering, but then Isadoro is on me, kissing any further words right from my mouth.

            I wrap my legs around him, pushing him against me. There’s something wild and insatiable inside me, something I’m having trouble containing. I bite at his lips and drag my nails across his back, rubbing my dick against his abs. For once, he’s the one struggling to keep up.

            “I want,” I say against his lips before pushing him away. He grunts in surprise and I squirm from under him, leaving him confused and on his front. I straddle the small of his back and push his head against the bed, cheek-side down. He groans low in his throat and, God, that sound. It cuts right through me.

            I want him so much the feeling almost burns.

            “Are you gonna take what I give you?” I murmur in his ear. He grunts again, and I feel his hips move as he rubs himself against the bedspread.

            “None of that,” I say, smacking him lightly on the ass. He makes another little noise and stops. I can see the want in him too, and it only emboldens me.

            “Don’t move,” I tell him, and my hands turn soft, leaving it to his discipline to follow my order. He stills, the tautness crackling in the air.

            I move down his body. My hands may be gentle, but my hungry mouth is vicious. I bite and suck a path down his back, mapping out all the tension lines holding for me.

            When I reach his ass, I grip each cheek in a hand, squeezing tight. Isadoro huffs out a choked sound and I can’t take it anymore. I part his cheeks and lick a long line against his hole.

            The reaction is immediate. He jerks under me, his hips pressing against the bed.

            “Jesus!” he says. I move back slightly, humming contemplatively. My hands are still on his cheeks, and I press both my thumbs against his hole, rubbing my spit in. I lick him again, right over my thumbs and his hole, getting him wetter.

            I watch as one of my thumbs presses inside. The rippled ring sucks it in, Isadoro’s hips tilting slightly to give me a better angle. I twist my thumb and, without ceremony, push the other one in so they’re nail-to-nail, facing sideways. Isadoro gasps and I push them in as far as they’ll go.

            “Fuck! Fuck, fuck,” he babbles, but I’m not done.

            I part my thumbs slightly, stretching him. He groans long and hard and I lean in, using the gap between my thumbs to lick inside. I move the tips of them against his walls, massaging him there and he starts bucking slightly against my face, making noises like a wild thing.

            I remove my fingers in a quick pull and he lets out a whine. I press the flat of my tongue against his hole and then suck hard there.

            I’ve never seen Isadoro go so crazy in bed before. He yanks at the sheets, head bowed and desperately gasping as he lifts his hips. I follow, hitching his hips up for real so he’s on his knees and the angle is better. I spear my tongue in, out, in again. He trembles and moves with me, and I can’t quite believe I have this in my hands. His straining muscle and force, the pleading mass of him, for me.

            “You want me to fuck you?” I ask. Isadoro groans. “Or do you wanna fuck me? Is that what you’re thinking about? Opening me up and filling me with this big dick of yours…”

I reach down, squeezing the head of his leaking cock, rubbing at the slit. Isadoro breaks. He bucks suddenly, throwing me off, and pins me with a forearm against my clavicles. His eyes stare down at me, two dark points glowing with darkness.

            “You want to play games?” he growls.

            “If I did, I’d be winning,” I say through my racing heart.

            The smile he gives me bodes terrible things.

            He yanks the lube from the nightstand and fucks two fingers into me. I moan at the sudden intrusion, but it’s not long before he’s pushing in a third. The stretch has me gasping and clutching at him, my cock achingly hard.

            “Is this what you were looking for?” he mutters darkly in my ear.

            “Is that your dick? I think you’ve shrunk,” I snark.

            Isadoro pulls back slightly and stops inches from my face. With brutal precision, he starts fucking his fingers against my prostate at every thrust. All the while he just looks at me, at my mouth dropping open, wet and red, at the flush I feel rising on my cheeks, the shape of the desperate little noises I’m making.

            “What were you saying?” he teases.

            “You. Have. A. Small. Penis,” I say between moans. He snorts.

            “That was very convincing.”

            I open my eyes and grab the back of his neck.

            “Isadoro. Fuck me. Now,” I tell him.

            Apparently, those are the magic words.

            He wipes his hand against the sheets and puts the condom on, crawling between my legs and wrapping them around his waist. Then, to my surprise, he slides us to the edge of the bed and stands up, taking me with him.

            “What-!” I shout, startled, but he just turns around and pushes me against a wall, my legs still around him.

            “Bastard,” I try to say, but the word is punched out as he thrusts in.

            I don’t have time to catch my breath. I’m just clinging to his broad shoulder and bulging bicep as he holds me up. I can’t even speak, not even his name, my voice a series of broken grunts he fucks out of me.

            “Touch yourself for me, Iván,” he says. I follow his instruction blindly. There’s not a single thought in my mind. All I know is Isadoro’s hands under my thighs, his cock deep in my ass, the searing glow of pleasure inside me.

            I fist my cock. I moan, and his lips take it away from me. I can’t breathe it’s all so good, so much, as Isadoro keeps pounding away.

            “Is…Isa,” I moan, and the orgasm hits me like a burst of light. Isadoro just keeps thrusting into me. I shudder against him, feeling every inch inside my over-sensitized body. I take it, the pleasure expanding and thinning, until he presses me against the wall, groaning as he comes too. I can feel the twitches of his cock inside my abused hole.

            I’m panting and incoherent. Isadoro stumbles us onto the bed and we collapse. He barely coordinates taking the condom off and throwing it into the trash can before slumping against me. We’re lying lengthwise across the bed, legs dangling off, but we don’t even care, fucked out of our heads.

            “Holy shit,” I say.

            “Who has a small dick, again?” Isadoro pants out. I laugh, pressing my face against him.

            “Fucking idiot,” I say with every ounce of love in the world.

            My body is limp and sated as our heartbeats calm down. I can hear his where my ear rests on his chest. It's steady and comforting, and I just listen to it for a while.

            “Do you think you’ll adopt that dog from the shelter?” I say as the thought randomly passes through my mind.

            “Not right now,” he says, a mumble I can still feel through his lungs.

            “How come?”

            “It’s not the right moment,” he says, and I go cold.

            “Are you…thinking of going somewhere?” I try to say nonchalantly, hiding the fear that suddenly spears me. Isadoro squeezes me closer.

            “Not what I meant. I’m just not ready for that responsibility.”

            “Oh,” I say, feeling a little silly. “Okay, that makes sense.”

            “It would be cool though, having a dog around.”

            “Yeah. I still miss Philipo,” I say, referring to one of the dogs we had grown up with at the farm. He had been some unidentified breed, a true mutt, but beautiful. Of medium height, he’d had thick, coarse fur, grey and brown tipped with white. His long snout had been a little bearded, giving him a wise air about him which suited him.

            There had been a lot of dogs in our childhood, owned by the families we lived next to. They were allowed to roam loose most of the day, and they would often go in groups or pairs to explore the area. Though it was good to see them with so much freedom, it meant a lot of them simply disappeared, run over by cars or for some unknown reason. That was the worst bit—not knowing what had happened to them. They were all chipped, so it was unlikely someone had found and kept them, but it was always a hope. People don’t realize how painful hope can be when it’s fruitless. Its barren branches hang heavy with suffering, when otherwise the loss would rest on the ground, left to decompose and join the earth.

            “I miss Bolo,” Isadoro replies. Bolo had been a Boxer, goofy and good-natured, but could turn suddenly territorial if pressed. Then again, all dogs I had come across could turn ferocious when challenged enough. Bolo had been addicted to fetching pinecones, barking at you to throw them, although more reticent about giving them back. He’d reminded me of the main character in a kid’s cartoon movie about dogs, while Philipo was the cool, street-wise dog who shows the pup the ropes. Philipo had had the strange quirk of picking up and holding a leaf in his mouth when we went for long walks around the farm, and had been as smart as he was loyal.

            I remember staying up through the summer nights with Isadoro, playing Nintendo games until the sun rose up. The sight of that sliver of red in the horizon would energize us suddenly, and we’d run to the nearest reservoir, sitting on one of its dirt edges to watch the sunrise. Philipo would always follow us, a leaf in his mouth. He’d sit silently beside us as if he too could see the oranges and pinks spreading like watercolours across blotting paper. When the sky finally turned blue, we’d run down the side of the reservoir, shrieking madly. Philipo would follow, tail wagging happily and eyes bright.

            I chuckle into Isadoro’s chest at the memory.

            “What is it?” Isadoro asks, and I can tell he’s already smiling.

            “I was just thinking…remember when we took a joy ride in Tita Maria’s car?” I ask. Isadoro’s laugh rumbles through him.

            “Yeah,” he says. We’d stolen the crappy little car just as the sun rose and drove it along the road next to the farm. We’d blasted the AC at its coldest setting, and the radio had been tuned to some classical music channel, blaring on the tinny speakers. It had been in perfect juxtaposition to our crazy laughter as we raced the car down the road.

            “You ever think of going back there? Working at the farm or something?” I ask.

            “Not really. Especially if you’re not there. I know you like it here,” he says. I tilt my head up to look at him.

            “Best friends forever, huh?”

            “Yes,” he says simply, and I believe him.

 

**********

 

            Life gains rhythm.

            Isadoro starts going out more again, at least to the dog shelter or the gym. I keep an eye on him at work, but he’s stone-faced and professional, giving nothing away. I invite him to outings, just the two of us. He mostly agrees, but he never suggests any of his own. I learn to choose less crowded places. The forest, the botanical gardens, the park. One Saturday we stop at a café and he spends it looking intently at a couple who seem on the verge of arguing, like he’s waiting for something.

            At home, we both keep strange hours, but we fuck late into the night. He likes to be in control, but I like breaking him apart. One tired Tuesday night, I finger him until he’s begging, a desperate, squirming mess in my bed. He’s trembling in the aftermath of his orgasm and I stroke his shivering muscles, running my fingers through the hair of his panting chest.

            As good as the sex is, he never stays the night. Sometimes it feels like I’m holding something in my hands which looks like what I’ve always wanted but is hollow inside.

            At night, he’s like a ghost haunting the apartment. He exists in the static of the TV, the shuffle of steps, the distinctive sound of a plug being slotted in a few walls over. I lay in my bed and wonder what he’s thinking. Wonder if he’s haunted by his own ghosts, if they also come out at night. I question if my worry is overblown, if it’s just a faulty circadian rhythm.

            My head pinwheels.

            It’s past 2:00 a.m. and I can hear the TV on in the living room. Fed up with my own thoughts, I get up and tread towards the noise. Isadoro is already looking in my direction as I step into the living room and I sit beside him on the couch. I press against him, head on his shoulder, and he wraps his arm around me.

            “Don’t you sleep?” I ask eventually. I feel Isadoro shift beside me.

            “Sometimes.”

            “Do you have nightmares?”

            “Sometimes.”

            “Is that why you don’t sleep? And don’t say sometimes,” I say, lifting my head to look at him. He smiles slightly.

            “Right after Mosul, we did some vampire work. Night extractions. Guess I’m just used to having nights without night,” he says. I frown. That wasn’t a no.

            “Sounds exhausting.”

            “Sometimes.”

            “You know, you can come into my bed if you want. Whenever you want. If it would help,” I say. He looks at me for a moment.

            “Don’t think I don’t see how hard you’ve been working yourself, Iván. You need to sleep.”

            “So do you.”

            “I don’t think it’ll do us good to both be sleep deprived.”

            “Depends on what we do instead of sleeping,” I joke, but I don’t make a move, pressing my nose against his shoulder. His arm is still wrapped around me, and it falls to my waist, his palm flat against my stomach. There’s another moment of TV-filled silence.

            “Why don’t you quit the bartending job? I have money,” Isadoro says.

The truth is I’ve thought about it. It would be a huge relief, but I don’t want to leave him working at the bar on his own. I’ll wait until I’m sure he’s adjusting before I consider quitting.

            “Maybe,” I say, turning my attention towards the TV. “What are you watching?”

            “ _Time Traveller’s Wife._ ”

            “Hmm, I wish I could time travel,” I say absently, thinking about all the paintings and buildings I could see in their prime if I could go back in time. “It would be such a cool superpower.”

            “What! Iván, that would literally be the worst superpower to have,” Isadoro says. I lift my head again to narrow my eyes at him.

            “Why the hell?”

            “It’d be too much responsibility. Think of all the terrible historic moments you could alter in retrospect. But every time you went back, you don’t really know what you would change, or—there’s like a million things to think about,” he says sensibly. I don’t pout.

            “You could just go to the future, then! That’d be cool.”

            “Yeah, but then you would learn things from that future’s past, so you wouldn’t be able to go back again 'cause you’d be travelling back in time and changing that future. So you would only ever be able to go forwards, alone…It would be an endless cycle.”

            “Jesus. Fine, then. I’ll stick to flying as my superpower.”

            “Then you’d have to think about how the altitude would affect you, the speed, the cold…”

            “Oh my God. You are the biggest downer ever. What’s the best superpower then Mr. Marvel?”

            “Teletransportation. We could go anywhere. The Bahamas. Great Wall of China…”

            “Taking me with you, are you?” 

            “Who else?” he says.

            “Well, my superpower would be multiple orgasms. Zero refractory period,” I snark. Isadoro snorts, but his eyes are dark as he looks at me.

            Isadoro tries to carry me to the bedroom, but I smack him across the head until he lets me go. We laugh into my room and I bounce as I throw myself onto my bed. Isadoro follows, and we play-fight for a while like we used to do as children. This time, however, we’re distracted by wandering hands and lips. I pull at his clothes until he relents, letting me strip him bare for me. I push him away as he tries to do the same to me and force him to watch my smirk as I undress slowly on the bed. When I’m done, he’s smiling too, like he knows something I don’t.

            “Is that how you want to play it?” he murmurs as he cages me between his arms, leaning over my prone body.

            “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say innocently. Isadoro grins.

            He grabs the lube, coating his fingers and then thrusting two into me. My hips arch, but I tamp down a noise. His smile widens.

            He brushes his mouth against my body, fingers moving in and out of me until he reaches my already hard cock. He licks the base of my dick and I shudder. He moves with small, short, teasing licks until he reaches the tip. Suddenly, his mouth wraps around my cock, his lips tucked over his teeth and pressing right below the head as he strokes the tip roughly with his tongue.

            “Jesus, Isa!” I shout, struggling not to thrust up as I rake my fingernails across his scalp.

            Merciless, he sucks hard on the tip of my cock and then starts scissoring his fingers inside me. Where he’s usually slow and methodical he’s all brutal intensity now, and my insides liquify.

            His lips move down my shaft, a tight, wet ring as his tongue pushes against the underside. Suddenly, I’m in his throat, and he swallows around me. God, he really has done this before. I feel jealousy mix with arousal, almost making it more potent. I clutch at what little hair I can as I thrust into his mouth, not being able to keep still anymore. He just takes it.

 _Fuck you_ , I think to whoever has had this before. _Fuck you. He’s mine._

            In the middle of the confusing mix of emotions, I come. It blindsides me completely, the pleasure having spiked so quickly. My mouth is a wet, soundless ‘O’ as I feel him swallow around me even though I’m not wearing a condom. Not that it’s the first time we’ve gone bare on blowjobs, and I know I’m clean, but the hazy mental note to talk about it stands.

            My spent dick rests wetly on my thigh, covered in Isadoro’s spit and the remnants of my come. There’s something disgustingly hot about that.

            I try to blink my eyes open but Isadoro is kissing me, tasting of me. I lap at it with a possessiveness I’ve never felt with anybody else.

            I only notice his fingers are still inside me when they start to move again.

            “What…” I mutter in a haze, but he kisses any protest away. The fingers avoid my prostate but they’re an odd, over-sensitized pleasure inside me.

            We drag out each kiss until his fingers become a little more intent. I gasp into his mouth and feel him grin. Slowly, he kisses down my neck until his mouth is on one of my nipples. He drags the flat of his tongue across it and then pulls it with his lips until I’m writhing on the bed. I’m fully hard again, I realize, his fingers massaging my prostate as he bites one nipple, then the other, and back to the first. The live wire of my pleasure sparks against the landscape of my closed eyes.

            “Isa, Isa,” I say, and he comes up, mouth leaving my chest to find my lips, kissing me hard and bruising and then just pulling back. His other hand jerks me off slowly and he just watches me unravel, gasping his name.

            The second orgasm washes over me in trembling ripples as I look back at Isadoro. When my body finally slumps, it’s exhausted. I look at Isadoro through slit-eyes as he strokes my face. I wait, but he doesn’t remove his fingers from inside me.

            “Isa…”

            “One more,” he says softly, as if he’s not asking the impossible.

            “No, no way,” I say, shaking my head against the pillow even though I already know what’s going to happen.

            “One more,” he says, kissing me again.

            He keeps pumping his fingers into me. I feel achy and used, my eyes squeezing shut.

The next few minutes are a haze. Every brush of my prostate or my dick drags a whine from me, but it’s as if my body can’t help it. Under Isadoro’s command, it reawakens. He’s got three fingers in me before I even know what’s happening, his other hand massaging my spent balls. My body is not mine, now. It’s his and I hand it over, sparking in his hands.

I’m not quite sure what’s happening when his fingers slide out of my body, but I don’t think to question it. The next moment brings more. Isadoro leans over me and then his cock is inside me. I blink my eyes open and his own are bright stars above me.

            He kisses me as he starts moving. He fucks me in slow, deep, precise thrusts that have me half crazy. I’m panting, not sure if the pleasure climbing inside me is too sharp to take. I feel so fucking full, limp-limbed and floating. 

            When the third orgasm hits it’s almost dry, an aborted cry in my throat Isadoro swallows down. The pleasure is the foam from a crashed wave, sizzling over me.

            I feel Isadoro clean me up and then lie next to me, a warm presence around me.

            “That’s quite the superpower,” I rasp. He smiles, stroking my face.

            At the edge of unconsciousness, I wrap my arms around his body.

            “Sleep,” I say, and fall for my own spell.


	5. Chapter 5

The routine of having Isadoro back lulls me. I start to relax. To think, _maybe this is all there is to it._

            The bar is filled to capacity. It’s Saturday night and the sound of the crowd is loud, the music even louder. I’ve never liked working the bar. It’s hectic, you get a tip every blue moon if you’re lucky, and drunk people are the worst.

            A prime example of the latter is the guy hanging around at the edge of the bar. He’s been trying to get my attention ever since he got there, even though I already served him his drink and the push for the bar is four-man deep.

            “Hey, blondie!” he shouts again as I serve someone near him. I don’t even glance at him. You don’t have to look any sort of way to get hollered at if you work behind the bar, and we’ve all developed a thick skin. Patrons protesting about expensive drinks and ending happy hours, complaining about the ratio of alcohol, trying to short us in the dark—we’ve seen it all.

            “Hey! Hey! Blondie!” The guy is still shouting five minutes later. I sigh as I see he’s starting to disturb the people around him. I walk towards him and lean in just enough to be able to communicate.

            “Yes?” I ask coldly. The guy’s eyes are glassy and bright. I know it’s just the alcohol and the lights, but it lends him a feverish, maniacal look that does nothing to ease my discomfort.

            “What’s your name?” he slurs. I fight hard not to roll my eyes.

            “You got it in one. It’s Blondie,” I drawl. He blinks for a moment before throwing his head back and howling with laughter. I take a deep breath to try and regain some patience.

            “It’s busy, so I can’t talk. You want a drink?”

            “You gonna buy it for me?” he says, leaning further in.

            “Me, bartender. You, patron. You buy the drinks here, buddy,” I say testily.

            “You’re quite the little bitch, eh?” he says, mouth turning as he finally cottons on to my rejection.

            “I think it’s time for you to leave. And by ‘I think’ I mean I’m going to call those big guys by the doors if you don’t,” I say. I don’t have time for this bullshit.

            “Listen here,” the guy says, grabbing at my shirt and pulling me forward. I have him off me in a second, thumb pressing on the weak spot at the wrist and then taking a step back.

I look toward the bouncers, but a commotion catches my eye. It’s Isadoro, forcefully parting the crowds as he shoves toward me. For a second, I’m relieved, but then I catch sight of his expression. The snarl on his lips and steel in his eyes. It isn’t an ‘I’m a bouncer on my way to handle a situation’ look. It’s an ‘open the door of this moving car because someone cut you off’ look.

            “Shit. Shit, shit, shit,” I say. Luckily, we’re at the edge of the bar and I unlatch the exit, shoving Fever Eyes out of the way just in time to get between him and the bull stampeding for him.

            “Isadoro!” I shout, grabbing at his shirt. He isn’t even looking at me, eyes focused on the guy behind me. “Hey! Hey, hey—one! Remember, I say one-”

            Isadoro grabs me firmly by the arms and just picks me up and puts me out of the way. I try to cling to his shirt because this is going to get bad. I can see it on his face.

            Fever Eyes has no idea what’s going on. His ego and confidence are on an alcohol high, and not even the guy who just barrelled towards him is shutting him up.

            “Hey!” I shout at Fever Eyes, trying to change tactic, but it’s too late. Isadoro picks the guy up clean off his feet and then slams him hard against the wall once, twice, three times. Fever Eyes’ head flops forwards and backwards unnervingly. On the third hit, his head smacks against the wall so hard it’s audible even over the music and the crowd. My heart stops.

            “Isa!” I shout, fear real and tangible. “Let him go! Fuck!” I say, trying to get between them, but a few seconds later the other bouncer, Alfie, is there, pulling Isadoro back. The moment Alfie’s hand is on him, Isadoro takes a swing. Alfie steps back just in time, but we’re all dumbfounded.

            “Enough!” I shout, grabbing the wrist that just swung with both my hands. “Look at me. Isadoro. Look at me.”

            For a moment, he’s not there. In his eyes, it’s like he’s gone. Then, slowly, he wakes up. He eyes flit around. He’s red, panting, a hand still gripping the shirt of Fever Eyes, who is clutching at his head. I think I see blood.

            “Let go of him. Let go of him,” I plead. He does.

            The rest of the night is a blur.

            Alfie escorts us out. The cold hits my bare arms at once and I stand there shivering until someone brings me a coat.

            I can’t think. I can’t function.

            Fever Eyes is bleeding from the head. It’s a lot of blood, and even knowing head wounds are prolific bleeders doesn’t stop the nauseating worry inside me.

            The paramedics arrive. The police. At the sight of the flashing lights, my whole body goes numb.

            Fever Eyes is going to be fine, they tell me, but they have some questions for me. I tell them the truth, maybe a little embellished on Fever Eyes’ harassment. In these situations, I’m never sure if a few insults and a grab is going to be enough. And then,

            “He—Isadoro—came back from Iraq a few months ago,” I say. The officer stills, and then her whole expression changes.

            “I see,” she says.

            They don’t arrest him, putting it under the umbrella of “self-defence” and “work-appropriate force.”

 _Jesus_ , I think. _This is what it’s like to be part of the law enforcement family._

            Fever Eyes is going to be fine, they tell me again. Head wounds bleed a lot. I nod.

            The police leave. The paramedics have taken Fever Eyes away for observation. The crowd disperses.

            Isadoro gets fired on the spot. The manager catches my eyes but doesn’t say anything to me. I look away.

            The shaking of my hands has subsided as I drive us home. I don’t even put the radio on. Everything is silence.

            When we reach the apartment, Isadoro heads straight for his room.

            “Don’t you fucking dare go into your room right now,” I say quietly. Isadoro stops but doesn’t turn back. I sit on the couch, face in my hands for a moment. Isadoro just stands there, between his cave and me.

            “You need to get some help,” I say into the silence. The words have a strange ring to them, the odd aftermath of a struck bell.

            “I don’t…” He trails off. I turn my head to look at the cross of his shoulders and back.

            “Are you really going to say you don’t need help after tonight?” I say. His hands clench at his sides. “Isadoro, this isn’t an accusation! For God’s sake, everybody needs help sometimes! And you spent eight tours out there! Anybody would need a little help!”

            “Not me,” he clenches out.

            “Isa, please-”

            “I’m allowed to be angry!” he says, finally turning to face me.

            “I know that. I know that. Anybody can be angry. You can be angry. What you _can’t_ do is crack a guy’s head open on a wall!”

            “He was all over you,” he growls. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out for a second.

            “If this is because we’re sleeping together-”

            “It has nothing to do with that! He was making you uncomfortable, he _grabbed_ you,” he says like it’s the worst sin.

            “Yes. He was making me uncomfortable. He grabbed me. But you know what? It’s part of the job. No, let me finish. I know it shouldn’t _be_ part of the job, but it is. There is protocol on how to deal with it, and I had the situation more than handled. I wasn’t in danger. You didn’t protect me from anything. You aren’t my personal bodyguard, Isa. You can’t go around beating people up because they grab me, especially in a situation that was so under control. I don’t care how you feel about it, if you’re angry or not—I was angry too! But you can’t, you can’t…” I run my hands through my hair. “You can’t do that. What if you’d really hurt that guy? You could have gone to jail and then…” I press the heels of my hands to my eyes.

            My breath is stuttered as I try to calm down. I hear Isadoro walk towards me, the dip of the couch as he sits next to me.

            “I’m sorry,” he says, but I know they’re just words. Not because he doesn’t mean them, but because nothing is going to change.

            I lower my hands and look at him. My eyes are wet, and it distorts Isadoro for a moment. I reach out and grasp his hand.

            “Please, just…go to the V.A. I can go with you, or drive you and wait in the car, or just drive-”

            “Stop,” he says. I stop. “I don’t need all that. This was one incident, okay?”

            “How many more-”

            “There won’t be more. It won’t happen again,” he says, looking away.

            I close my eyes. His hand is still and limp in mine.

            I don’t let go.

 

**********

 

            It’s like something breaks.

            I’ve seen the documentaries. Veterans talking about the aftermath. The nightmares, the flashbacks, the anger. It all made sense when they shared their stories. There was a sort of linear narrative to it. How the depression hit them when they got home. It didn’t sneak up. It was there all along.

            Some of them talk about how the V.A. helped them. Some of them talk about how the system failed them.

            I’m left wondering about the people who can’t get on camera to tell their stories. Who don’t have a linear story. Who, as Isadoro put it, don’t survive.

            A void has opened, and I can’t jump it. I can see Isadoro on the other side. He’s alone. So am I. But I can’t reach him.

            The harder I try, the wider the chasm seems.

 

**********

 

            Those first few days, I think it’s going to blow over. I leave him alone, giving him space. Two days pass. Three. Anxiety is a heavy stone in my stomach, a restless swarm in my lungs. Four.

            He disappears. I can’t even hear him at night.

            I’ve been knocking on his door almost every day, but on the fourth day, the rap on the door becomes insistent.

            “Isa?” I say, voice almost cracking as I try to put force on its tentative frame. I hear the slightest noise inside. I let out a breath, relieved.

            “Isa, I’m coming in,” I say through the door and then pause, waiting for a response.

            Nothing.

            I open the door, thanking God it’s not locked. The smell hits me at once. Unwashed human, sweaty sheets. I step into the fog. The room is completely dark, the curtains drawn. It eats up the light from the hallway as I push the door open a little further. My shadow steps in front of me, as tentative as I am.

            “Isa,” I say again. The creature under the sheets shifts. It looks too small to be Isadoro. I walked towards it. “Isa…”

            He’s curled on his side, facing the wall the bed is pushed against. The sheets are drawn up high, swallowing him up. His face is turned towards the pillow, buried in it. I wonder how he can breathe.

            I squat beside the bed so that I’m eye-level with the curve of his scalp on the white pillow.

            “Isa. Isa, come on. Why don’t we go sit on the couch? Air the room out?” I suggest. He doesn’t move a muscle. “Isa.”

            “What?” a croak from the sheets says. I startle. My heart starts pounding.

            “Why don’t we go to the living room? Leave the room for a while?”

            “No,” he says simply.

            “Just for-”

            “I said no.” His voice isn’t harsh, but it’s cold, somehow, like he’s talking to a stranger. I take a deep breath of the musty air.

            “Okay, well, how about I bring you some food?”

            “I’ve eaten.”

            “Barely anything. I can-”

            “I said I’ve eaten.” His body tightens into himself, the shell of his back hardening. I let out a breath.

            I stay there for a while. Isadoro and me, and the wall between us. He doesn’t move. I don’t know what to say. Except.

            “Okay.” The fragile word dissolves instantly in the dark.

            When I shut the door behind me, the click sounds final.

 

*****

 

            I search for information on veterans of the Special Ops. I find almost nothing.

            I think, _what can I do?_

            Living in an individualistic society builds a very particular illusion around you: You Can Do Anything. Even if we don’t believe in ourselves there’s a little voice in our heads. “ _You could do it if you actually applied yourself and tried_ ”. Possibility is an obstacle away. It’s a sense of power that doesn’t feel like power.

 _I can do anything if I try hard enough_.

            But I can’t.

 

*****

            I quit the job at the bar, but my head is still filled to the brim. Life doesn’t slow down for us. I go to class and studio, trying to keep up with the homework, but it’s like I’m running with a millstone like a noose around my neck.

            Every spare thought is Isadoro’s. No amount of exhaustion will help me sleep.

            I check the food obsessively, counting everything so I know when something goes missing. A banana. Two pieces of bread. The jar of chocolate spread.

            I make him arroz con leche, a treat my mom used to make us when we were kids. The smell of cinnamon is an almost unbearable ache. I wait to see if the scent draws Isadoro out, but his door stays shut.

            Maybe it doesn’t even reach him.

            It comes out a little mushy, but I shrug it off. We always preferred it cold, so I wait until it cools down and then put it in the fridge. In the late evening, I take two of the small pots out. My lungs and my stomach are heavy, but I ignore them as I walk to Isadoro’s room. Balancing the pots on a plate, I knock on Isadoro’s door and call his name. Silence answers me.

            “I’m coming in,” I say. The door opens, and a familiar scene greets me. The smell and the darkness are thicker, making me pause at the entrance.  

            “Isa,” I say, just to hear something in this silence.

            My steps are muffled as I walk inside. Isadoro is in the same position, and I kneel beside the bed, placing the plate and spoons on the bedside table.

            “I made you some arroz con leche,” I say quietly. My pulse jumps as Isadoro shifts, but he doesn’t turn around. I wait a few more seconds.

            “Please. I…I promise, it’s better than my lasagne,” I try. When that doesn’t work, I press a hand against his hidden back. “Please.”

            It works. I snatch my hand back as he turns around, grabbing a dessert pot and a spoon. When he’s facing me, he just blinks at my face for a moment, before looking at the arroz con leche in my hands. He looks different, a scraggly beard on his face, but I’m just glad he’s looking my way. I hold my breath. With obvious effort, he sits up, back against the headboard.

            I have the sudden, insane urge to cry.

            “Here,” I say, handing him the pot and spoon. He takes them. Our fingers don’t brush.

            I get up from the floor to sit at the edge of the bed, watching him closely.

            “Quit staring,” he says, pointing at the other pot of arroz con leche on the plate. I take the hint and pick it up, making a considering noise as I eat a spoonful.

            “Not bad, right?”

            “It’s good.”

            We eat in silence. I pretend to look down as I watch him from the corner of my eye. He’s eating slowly and methodically, eyes unfocused. The taste doesn’t seem to be taking him anywhere. It’s just food.

            When he’s done and has placed the empty pot on the plate I decide to push my luck.

            “Why don’t you take a shower and I’ll change the sheets?” At my suggestion, Isadoro closes his eyes. He slides down, turning back to his original position. His back towards me.

            I sit there for a while, just watching him. No words come to me.

            Eventually, I leave, placing the dishes in the sink. I look at his empty pot.

            It doesn’t feel like a victory.

 

**********

 

            I don’t tell anyone about what’s going on. I try, but it feels like I’m betraying Isadoro’s trust. Like the darkness in his room is his own secret, and it’s not my right to shed light on it.

            One day I come back home and he’s in the living room. I stop short, my heart immediately racing. When I come closer, I see he’s showered, shaved, and changed. Cartoons flicker on the TV.

            “Hey,” I say.

            “Hey,” he replies. I’m too scared to say anything else, worried he’ll retreat to his room.

            I make pasta for dinner. I take my plate to the couch and pass him his nonchalantly. He takes it. I feel shaky with relief.

            We eat while watching _Cow and Chicken._

            I’m worried he’ll leave as soon as he’s eaten, but he stays. I press against him, resting my head on his shoulder. He wraps his arm around me like always.

            The last thing I think about before drifting to sleep is him.

 

*****

 

            Stupidly, I think that’s going to be it. That he’ll go out of his room once, then again and again until he leaves the apartment, and everything gets better.

            A week passes. Isadoro is back in his bed. The hair grows on his face. Spring arrives. I don’t know how time manages to advance through the thick molasses of our apartment. 

            The lack of sleep, the amount of university work, the fear. It all coalesces. I feel like fissures are cracking my skull open. My eyelids, the roof of my mouth, the inside of my skin; it’s all rubbed raw.

            I’ll knock on his door, leave him food, talk to him through the wall. I’ll sit in his room with him. I’ll lay on my own bed, thinking.

            Nothing. There’s nothing.

            One day, after hours of classes I barely concentrated in and paintings that came out dull and with faulty perspective, I heat up a pizza for dinner. Something easy I think Isadoro won’t be able to turn down. It’s a daily struggle to get him to accept food.

            I walk into his room after barely knocking.

            “Pizza,” I say like I’m the delivery boy. Isadoro doesn’t move. I clench my teeth.

            “Isadoro, come on. Let’s just eat,” I say. I’m so tired I can barely think.

            He doesn’t move. I set the tray on the bedside table and the next thing I know, my hand has picked up one of the glasses of water and dumped it over him.

            He’s out of the bed instantly, sheet flung to the side. I stumble back, glass still in my hand. I can hear my heart in my ears.

            “What the _fuck!_ ” Isadoro shouts. I open my mouth, but my throat is closed. Isadoro’s eyes are bottomless. There’s nothing there.

            “There’s—I brought you pizza,” I say stupidly. He just stares at me for a moment before his hands are around my biceps and he’s hauling me off my feet. I cry out, but he just walks me the few steps to the door and dumps me outside. The door slams shut. I stare at it for a moment, dizzy, before taking a step back.

            “Shit,” I say, and stagger to the living room. I crumple on the couch. My breath is coming out in gasps, my hands shaking.

            “Shit. Shit, shit, shit,” I repeat, pressing my face into my hands. I try to calm down, but I can’t seem to catch my breath, air heavy through my mouth as my eyes clench tight.

            “Shit.”

 

*****

 

            Guilt makes me wait three days before I approach his door again. I vow not to let the frustration get to me—at least not in Isadoro’s room.

            “Isa?” I say softly, knocking on his door. As expected, he doesn’t reply. I wait a few extra seconds. “I’m sorry about what happened. About what I did, I shouldn’t have…I’m sorry,” I say. I wait.

            Nothing.

            “I’m going to come in, okay? Just for a second.” I wait to see if there’s any protest. More silence.

            I push the handle down as I lean against the door and—a click. The door doesn’t budge. I try again. Another click. I stare at the handle, dumbfounded.

            The door is locked.

            It never occurred to me beyond the first time that Isadoro would lock the door. I try it again. Same result.

            “Isa. Isadoro. Open the door. Please,” I say. Wait. Nothing.

            “Isadoro,” I repeat. Something is crawling up my throat. There’s a band tightening around my chest.

            This I can’t take. This one final brick in the wall between us, this one final locked door. I, I—

I rattle the handle, pushing against the door.

            “Isadoro, open up!” My head is filled with the rush of my blood. There’s something wrong with my throat and my lungs. Air will go out but not in, body clenching at each intake. I bang on the door.

            I need it to open. _I need it to open._

            “Isa, please. Please, _please_ ,” I say, and I can’t take it. I can’t breathe, I can’t do it. Everything is so much all at once, all the shadows all around, the dishes in the sink and the unused easel in the corner and the silence, the _silence_ , it’s clogging the back of my throat, my hands are shaking, flapping. I press my back against the wall but it’s not holding me up and I can’t breathe. I’m crying, my tongue pasty and thick, my ribs jumping, my eyes blurred and sightless. All the air is jammed in my throat at once so that I can’t, I _can’t—_

            The door opens. I’m on the floor, somehow. I look up.

            “Isadoro,” I say, his name scrambled by my defective body.

            “Hey. Hey, hey,” he says, and then he’s around me, touching me, his arms and his hands and then his chest as he hauls me to my feet and against him. My arms wind around his neck at once, clinging to him. My chest is convulsing in big, awful sobs as I bury my face into his neck.

            “Please, please,” I say, even though I don’t know what I’m asking for anymore. Isadoro shushes me gently, holding me close as he strokes my back.

            “It’s okay. It’s open. It’s okay. Breathe, okay? Breathe,” he says.

            I try, but I can’t quite get there.

            Everything is a haze. When I calm down from gasping to stuttering breaths, Isadoro makes to pull away. I cry out, holding fast.

            “Hey, it’s okay,” he says and pulls me with him. He manoeuvres us to the bed and we lie down. The sheets smell bad. So does he. I hold him close.

            We stay there in that dark pit.

 

*****

 

            I wake up in the faint glow of a lamp. My eyes feel grainy, my mouth pasty, my throat raw. I blink. I’m still tangled in Isadoro, facing each other. He’s looking back at me with tired eyes. His beard has grown even longer. I rub my tongue against the roof of my mouth.

            “Water?” I ask. Isadoro passes me a bottle from under the bed. I take a long swallow, swishing the water around in my mouth to try and get rid of the taste. When I’m done, I hand the bottle back to him and we settle down again.

            “I’m sorry,” I say after a moment.

            “You already apologized. It’s fine.”

            “No, not about the whole water thing, although I’m sorry about that too. I’m sorry about the whole…freaking out thing,” I say. Isadoro frowns, as if not understanding the apology. “I shouldn’t, I know I shouldn’t be putting anything else on you.”

            He looks at me. “Why?”

            “I know…that you’ve been through a lot and, coming back, it’s a big change and I shouldn’t be adding to that. I should be-”

            Isadoro puts a hand between us on the bed, stopping me. “Iván…” he sighs, closing his eyes. He says nothing further, as if exhausted. The air inside my chest trembles. I don’t know what I’ve said wrong.

            “I’m sorry,” I apologize instantly. I don’t want him to kick me out. I don’t want him to close the door again.

            I don’t want to lose him.

            “I’m sorry, I don’t know…I’m sorry, I just don’t know…” I feel my eyes heat with tears. I close them.

            I can’t do this. I can’t burden him with my own issues. With the guilt of seeing what this is doing to me. I try to get a hold of myself. To reach inside and just hold everything together, but it’s like the foundation of me is rocking back and forth. Like everything is shaking air and dust. My breath comes out wetly and I try to clamp my mouth shut but everything is crumbling.

            There’s nothing to hold onto.

            “I’m sorry,” I repeat, and in the darkness of my closed eyes, Isadoro pulls me towards him. Before I know it, I’m crying again. I don’t know how to stop.

            “Come back,” I plead, fisting my hands on the back of his shirt. He holds me tight.

            “I’m right here,” he says.

            But he’s not.


	6. Chapter 6

“Jesus, Iván.”

            “Hello to you too,” I tell Jack. “Can I come in?”

            “Yeah, come…what happened?”

            I take a moment to collect myself. Take off my lightweight jacket, my shoes.

            “Can we go into the living room?” I ask. For some reason, my voice is already trembling.

            “Iván…” she says, placing her hands on my arms and looking at me. I avoid her eyes. I feel like I’m constantly at the edge of breaking. “Come here,” she says softly and pulls me into her arms. The next moment, I’m crying. I wrap my arms around her, shaking, and she presses me close, stroking my hair.

            She doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t shush me. Doesn’t tell me it’s going to be okay. She just holds me while I cry.

            When I’ve calmed down enough to move, she gets me some tissues and we sit on the couch.

It all comes spilling out.

            The incident at the bar. How things changed. How he won’t go out, or eat, or shower, or even sleep, probably, despite being in bed all day. I tell her about the glass of water. About the freakout. About that moment when the door wouldn’t open, and it felt like I would never be able to reach him. I tell her about the fear eating me up. The helplessness. The hopelessness starting to creep.

 _What if?_ I ask. _What if he doesn’t get better?_

            Jack listens to me silently until I’ve emptied myself of words. At the end, I feel hollow and scraped raw, but there’s relief too, to have it out there, to not be carrying this alone.

            “I don’t know what to do,” I say finally. Jack is turned towards me on the couch, holding my hand.

            “Iván…do you think that maybe you’re expecting more from yourself than is actually possible?” she asks. I squeeze my eyes shut.

            “I don’t want to talk about that. I’m sorry. I just…” I take a shaky breath. “I can’t think about more problems. I just want something. One…I just, I need help…” I say. I try to not start crying again.

            “Okay, how about you go to the nearest V.A. centre? There’s one not far from here. You’ll have to quote some information regarding Isadoro, but you can get a consultation meeting without him. Go, tell them what you’ve told me. Hear what they’ve got to say, what services they offer,” she suggests.

            “I can do that myself?” I ask.

            “Well, maybe not…on the books per say, due to confidentiality reasons, but the V.A. supports families and loved ones as well, so I think you’ll be able to get someone to talk to you. Try it and if not, we’ll think of something else. But don’t keep it inside for so long. Don’t isolate yourself along with him, Iván,” she says. I nod.

            “And…” she starts. I look at her. “Never mind,” she says, shaking her head. I let it go. I already know what she’s going to say.

            It’s not me who should be going to the V.A. It’s Isadoro.

            Still. One step at a time. 

 

**********

 

            The V.A. centre is a nondescript building. It reminds me of a state college, with small staff offices and larger rooms for meetings and group sessions. The carpet is worn, colours monotone and muted, and it smells like stale coffee as I step in. I head straight for the lady behind the windowed reception desk.

            “Hi. Uh, I’m here to see Mr. Afif? I have an appointment,” I say.

            “Name?”

            “Oh, yeah. Iván Ríos-Prado.”

            “Okay. Sign in here and take a seat. Mansur will come get you in a bit,” she says. I do and sit down. I look around the waiting room. Camo-green chairs, low tables, pictures of landscapes. I pick up a magazine, flip through it briefly, and then set it back down again. I’m too jittery to even flit blindly through the pages. It feels like I’m betraying Isadoro by being here.

Before my anxiety has a chance to really ramp up, a tall, Asian man comes out.

            “Iván Ríos-Prado?” he says.

            “Yep.” I get up and walk towards him. He smiles at me and I try to smile back.

            “Hello. Follow me and we can get properly introduced,” he says. I nod, and we walk down a hallway and into what looks like a therapist’s office.

It’s demurely decorated, with a desk by the window and some comfortable looking chairs facing each other between that and the door. Mansur sits on one of the chairs and picks up a pad of paper from a coffee table at its side. I sit on the chair opposite him, twisting my fingers in my lap.

            “Thanks for seeing me. I know it must be unusual to meet with, you know, not a veteran,” I say awkwardly before he can start.

            “Not at all, I meet with loved ones all the time,” he assures me.

            “Oh. Well, that’s good to know.” I look at him, a little lost. “Sorry. I’m a little…”

            “Don’t worry. This office has seen it all. How about I tell you a little about myself and then you can tell me a little bit about your situation, so we can figure out how our services can help you and your friend. Sound good?”

            “Sure.”

            “As you know, my name is Mansur Afif. I did three tours in Iraq, from 2003-2007. After a bit of soul-searching when I got back, I got my degree in counselling and have been a counsellor here since 2011. I offer individual and group therapy, as well as advisory assistance, such as connecting people with services that might best fit them, be it for government benefits or other mental health services, as well as meeting with people such as yourself who want to know a little more about what we offer. Am I right in saying you have a friend who qualifies for V.A. services?”

            “Yeah. Yeah, he, uh, he got back late 2017. He enlisted in 2010.”

            “That’s quite a number of tours.”

            “Yeah. Special Ops.”

            “That makes sense. How did you meet him?”

            “I’ve known him since forever. Since before I can remember.”

            “Ah. Childhood friends. Did you keep in touch during his service?”

            “Yeah. Phones, Skype…He stayed with me during his leave.”

            “It sounds like you’re very close.”

            “Yeah. Yeah, he…yeah. We are.”

            “Does he have anybody else in his support system?”

            “Um…I mean he and my parents are close. They talk on the phone, but my parents live far away and they’re busy with work, so…”

            “I see. So, it’s mainly you?”

            “I guess.”

            “What about you? You’re close to your parents?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Any other support system?”

            “For me? Oh, well, yeah, I guess. I have friends.”

            “That’s good. So, what made you decide to reach out to us?” he asks.

            “Well, I…I guess I’m just, I’m worried. I don’t know what to do. How to help him.”

            “Okay. You don’t mind me asking questions about the situation? You are not obligated to answer any of them, of course. Say pass and we’ll go to the next one or stop there.”

            “Okay. Sure, yes.”

            “Okay. When you say worried, can you tell me a bit more about that? Are there any behaviours your friend is showing, or not showing, worrying you?”

            “Well…He doesn’t talk to me. No, wait,” I say, shaking my head. “He, okay, he seemed to be doing better when he first got here but it’s like things are getting worse.”

            “In what way? Are there any specific behaviours that have changed to give you the impression things have worsened?”

            “He doesn’t leave the house, or his room, even. We live together, so…When he first got here he would leave the house, socialize…now he just doesn’t.”

            “What did he use to do when he left the house?”

            “Go to the dog shelter. He had a job as a bouncer at the bar I worked at. I got it for him, I…maybe I pushed him too hard…”

            “Did you insist he take the job?”

            “No. No, no, I just suggested it.”

            “It doesn’t sound like you pushed too hard.”

            “I guess. I just…”

            “I understand. We’ll get back to that in a moment if you like, let me just ask you a few more questions. So, from what you’ve said, one of the main changes concerning you is a decline in how often he leaves the house. I’m guessing he doesn’t have the job at the bar anymore?”

            “No, he, uh…He sort of, I mean the guy was an asshole, but he sort of hurt someone.”

            “Can you tell me what happened?”

            “Well, I was working behind the bar and some guy was not taking no for an answer, if you know what I mean, and grabbed at me, and Isa- I mean, my friend, was working the door and he sort of…hulked out. Grabbed the guy, slammed him against the wall. The guy cracked his head…”

            “Any charges pressed?”

            “No. But since that night, that’s when everything changed. I mean, I knew, before, that things weren’t right, but they _seemed_ okay. Now, he doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t come out to eat with me, I think he barely eats. I—I have class, so I can’t. I mean I want to, but I can’t be there all the time, you know?”

            “Of course. I understand. How do you know he doesn’t leave the house when you’re not there?”

            “Well…this is gonna sound kind of shady, but I leave a tiny slip of paper between the front door and its frame when I close it, so I know if someone has opened it ‘cause it would fall, you know? And it’s always untouched.”

            “That’s quite inventive.”

            “I got the idea from an anime I watched when I was a teenager, so…” I say. He chuckles.

            “As I said, inventive,” he smiles. I shrug, smiling back. “Was the incident at the bar the first time you saw him lose his temper since he got back?”

            “He only lost it once before. I was driving and someone cut me off and he almost jumped out of the car. He would have if the door hadn’t been locked.”

            “Has he always shown that kind of temper?”

            “No. Not at all. He’s always been intense and very…like, righteous? But not in an asshole way. Just, he’s always been very into what’s right and what’s wrong and he’s just very black-and-white about that stuff. And I’ve seen him do things because of that but never so reactive. And it’s not like he started shouting at everybody when he got back, it was only two incidents, but…”

            “But those incidents were out of the norm and risky enough to be of concern.”

            “Yeah. Exactly.”

            “Okay. Let me recap. Your main worries centre around the fact that, one, he seems to be isolating himself completely, even from you. And, two, he shows reactive behaviours in response to anger, especially when concerning a perceived wrong done to you,” he says. I nod along until he gets to the last bit. Yes, both those incidents had involved not only a perceived wrong, but a perceived wrong done to _me_.

From the garden of memory, incidents from childhood sprout up. Isadoro breaking up with a girl after she was nasty to me. Him having a row with his grandfather for the first time after Frank made a comment about me being a pansy, something which I’d never seen happen before. _I was the one that told Jamie Lanson_ _to back off._

            “Yeah,” I say, wondering how I hadn’t made the connection before.

            “How is his self-care? You mentioned you don’t think he’s eating much. Does he sleep?”

            “No, but he’s barely slept since he got here.”

            “Does he wash regularly?”

            “I don’t think so. His room smells.”

            “Okay. Any other risky behaviour? Consumption of alcohol or drugs?”

            “No. Not that I know of.”

            “Self-harm in the form of physically hurting himself?”

            “Jesus. I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t know, I don’t know what he does in his room.”

            “I know these questions can be alarming, but I’m trying to evaluate risk. If he doesn’t have a history of it and you have seen no signs, we can mark it as a no for now. Now, this is another question that might sound concerning, but all you can go off is the information you have. Has he ever expressed a desire to end his life?”

            “No. No, no, he—he’s never said anything about…anything like that.”

            “Okay, it’s just good to cover all our bases,” he says, but I’m shaken. That’s not something I even want to think about, even if at times it takes over my head.

            “I just…I don’t know. I’ve read the statistics, I’ve-”

            “I understand your concern, but your friend is not a statistic, Iván. Yes, statistics can give us information about a group of people, but they are less useful when dealing with individuals. It’s best to look at the information we have in front of us.

“No history of self-harm or behavioural indicators of suicidality. He has a support system which he lives with, and you have one too. Yes, it’s apparent your friend needs help, but I don’t think he poses a significant risk to himself or anybody he is currently in contact with. Again, that’s not to say he doesn’t need help, but for now, we can focus away from worrying about your friend going to any extremes.”

            “Okay. I just…I’m scared. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say, how to help him. I don’t know when I’m pushing too hard or not enough. Do I barge into his room? Do I knock? How many times do I knock? Should I-”

            “Okay, let’s take a little breath,” Mansur says. I breathe shakily. My heart is pounding.

I can’t lose Isadoro. Not now, when he’s finally back home. I _can’t._

            “I understand your concern, and it’s good your friend has someone who cares so much, but…okay. Imagine your friend was in a car crash and broke his legs. What could you do to help him?” he asks. I frown.

            “Uh…Take him to the hospital?”

            “Sure. Anything else? After he leaves the hospital?”

            “Um, make him soup? Help him around?”

            “Okay, good. Help in his recovery with assistance he can accept. Are you in charge of re-knitting his muscles? His bones?” Mansur asks.

            “Um…no.”

            “Right. That’s up to him. And if he had to do physical therapy, could you force him to do it if he didn’t want to?”

            “I could nag.”

            “And if he refused?”

            “I…well…Okay, I think I get what you’re saying.”

            “Iván, as I say, I’m glad your friend has such a good friend in you, but he is his own person. If you feel capable, you can be there for him for the help he is ready to accept. For that, all you can do is keep offering it, and be present and active. But you can’t force him to take it. It’s not your responsibility to. _His_ body must heal those bones. _He_ has to put the time and effort into recovery. I understand how this can be frustrating for both of you, but it can also be empowering. He has autonomy concerning himself. It probably doesn’t feel like that to him right now, seeing as whatever he is going through is not a choice, but as the car crash was not a choice, the physical therapy is still the person’s responsibility. Not exactly fair, in a way, but it’s the way it is.

            “So, are you pushing him too hard by simply telling him about a job opening? No. He is an adult. Are you pushing hard by knocking on his door? No, he lives with you, and you’re friends. Treat him like you would any other person with boundaries. Yes, he might not be making the best decisions right now, but as long as he is not putting himself or others at risk, you can’t make those for him. If you _do_ think he is a risk, call the Crisis Team or the police straight away.”

            “So…there’s nothing I can do.”

            “No, I didn’t mean quite that. There are things you can do. You can push. You can expect things from him and keep asking and trying. But this all has to happen with the understanding that, ultimately, his recovery is not your responsibility and you must accept his autonomy as a person. Does that make sense?” he says.

I take a deep, shaky breath. My head feels overstuffed. I don’t know what I was expecting. An easy cure? Being absolved of Isadoro’s recovery should be a relief, but it feels exactly the opposite.

            “Yes. I just…”

            “I get it. You love him. You want to help,” he says. I look at him.

            “Yes.”

            “Okay. Well, obviously I haven’t met your friend, but I can give you some information and advice. Ultimately, the goal would be for your friend to seek our services or other mental health services himself, as I’m sure you’ve been telling him to do.”

            “Yeah, I have.”

            “Good. Okay, well, the fact that your friend was Special Ops puts us in a bit of a different situation than the norm because the psychology of someone who can do that job isn’t exactly usual, even in the military. He redeployed many times so unless something very outside the norm happened in his last tour that made him leave the service, he probably developed some resilience to the difficult situations he saw and participated in during his tours. That’s not to say they wouldn’t have had an impact on him, by any means, but that he did so many tours in such a high-responsibility setting complicates the picture.”

            “Um…”

            “Okay, let me clarify. From what research has shown us regarding mental health, veterans can be impacted by three main sources of stress. Firstly, from any physical wounds obtained in combat, which is obviously not applicable in this case.

            “Secondly, trauma and trauma symptoms directly caused by situation seen or participated in during the war. For example, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder falls under this, but that’s a very specific diagnosis, and people can still be impacted by trauma without hitting the criteria for PTSD, such as by having only depressive symptoms and still functioning, so PTSD is not the be-all end-all of impact from difficult experiences. I haven’t met a veteran who wasn’t impacted in some way by their service, but the extent and severity of those symptoms vary greatly. I’m sure your friend has been impacted by the things he has seen and done to some degree, but we won’t know to what degree until he seeks professional help. Many of his symptoms could be explained by trauma, but many symptoms can be explained by different reasons, and those reasons are important when choosing which treatment should be offered, but that’s not something you need to worry about. Have you ever seen him have an episode in which something triggers a sudden onslaught of sensory memories that takes him away from the present moment?”

            “No. He has nightmares, I don’t know…”

            “Okay, well, similar techniques can be used to bring someone back from a nightmare. Mainly, these techniques are called ‘grounding’. The purpose of these is to remind the person where they are and that they are no longer in a dangerous environment. There are a lot of versions of this technique, and your friend would have to try different ones out to see which is the best suited to him.”

            “Can you give me an example?”

            “Of course. Sometimes, people benefit from a grounding object, which is any small object they can carry with them all the time that they can hold or rub to centre them. A laminated card with certain sentences helps. Service animals serve a similar purpose. Alternatively, you can use your senses to ground yourself such as by thinking about five things you can see, four things you can feel, three things you can smell. Do those make sense?”

            “Yeah, thanks. That actually makes a lot of sense.”

            “Good. Okay, where were we…Right. The third main impact on a veteran’s mental wellbeing, and the one that is especially impactful in veterans of the Special Ops, is adjusting to civilian life.

            “Adjusting to civilian life isn’t just a practical adjustment in terms of finding housing, a job you have skills at, education, a partner, dealing with family life, etc. It’s also a psychological one. It’s going from feeling you have a purpose and a place and a team to feeling completely unmoored in a civilian environment you feel foreign in. For people in the Special Ops especially, this is one of the greatest contributors for affected mental health because they have such a great amount of responsibility, training, and time invested in what is ultimately an incredibly involved career. Many a twenty-year-old has felt adrift and rudderless simply due to the economic landscape right now. For veterans, this is multiplied tenfold by the disparity between their service and their life as a civilian, as well as the impact of trauma or traumatic events.”

            “So…he’s probably not only impacted by, like, things that have happened, but by feeling…purposeless.”

            “Yes. I’m going to guess the reason the incident at the bar affected him so much is because he perceived it as evidence of how he is failing to adjust to civilian life. In one moment he probably felt a lack of control and therefore discipline, a failure of the 'mission', losing his job, affecting you negatively, breaking a handful of civilian social conventions…After an incident like that, it’s easy to think, ‘I’m defective. What’s the point of even trying?’ and giving up.”

            “Oh. That makes a lot of sense,” I say. I hadn’t actually given much thought as to _why_ that particular incident had been so impactful beyond the obvious. “So, what do I do?”

            “Treat him like a person. Like your friend. If you have a project he can help you with, ask him to be involved. Ask him to do chores. Small things that can be escalated into more demanding things. Don’t treat him like he’s a ticking time bomb. Simply, show him he’s not defective. You can’t force him to believe it, but you can show him,” Mansur says. I nod slowly, trying to process the onslaught of information.

            “Okay. I think…that makes sense.”

            “Good. And lean on your own support system. Do not isolate yourself. Do not cast yourself as your friend’s saviour. Be smart about the sacrifices you make for him. You mentioned you’re in college — make sure you keep at it. Okay?”

            “Okay,” I say, laughing a little.

            We talk for a few minutes more, but I can’t take much more. The session was useful but oddly exhausting. I leave with his direct office line in my pocket, feeling tired but also the one thing I’d been looking for.

            Hope.

 

**********

 

            I let a few days pass, feeling Mansur’s words percolate through the grooves of my brain. They drip down the windowpane of my worries, mixing with all the dust and the grime already collected there until I can see an idea peek through the glass.

            After a knock and a warning, I step into Isadoro’s room.

            “Isa, I really need your help,” I say. Surprisingly, he stirs straight away, turning to look at me. He blinks at the light streaming from the hallway.

            “What?” he croaks.

            “I need your help. Please,” I say, and walk back towards the living room, leaving his bedroom door open.

            I wait. I strain my ears for the click of his door shutting, but it doesn’t come. Instead, Isadoro appears, rumpled and bruise-eyed, but there.

            “Sit down, okay? I need help with a project,” I say, pointing at one of the kitchen stools I’ve placed in front of the easel, behind which I’m standing.

            “You want to draw me?” Isadoro asks, frowning.

            “Not quite,” I say, and busy myself with the paints and pencils, moving them around restlessly so he doesn’t feel watched.

            Amazingly, he sits down. I take a deep breath.

            “I want you to describe a memory of when you were deployed. Or, like, not the full memory, but describe one scene. It doesn’t have to be, you know, anything…big or…you know. It can be anything. A street. A landscape. A person. A moment. Whatever,” I say. Isadoro still has a frown on his face.

            “Why?”

            “Because I want to draw it.”

            We look at each other. The silence stretches. Then, he sighs.

            “Fine,” he says, like he’s only sitting there because it would take more effort to say no than to say yes, but I don’t care. I’ll take what I can get.

            It takes him a while to think of a memory, but I don’t prompt him. I watch him from the corner of my eye. He’s lost his military posture. His back is a broken curve, hands loose between his knees as he rests his feet on the bar between the stool’s legs. His skin is sallow and it’s obvious he’s lost weight.

            He doesn’t look like any Isadoro I’ve ever met before, but I’ll take this one too.

I startle a little when he starts talking but listen intently. The image is simple but precisely described. My hand moves on its own, following Isadoro’s words easily. The scene takes shape in front of me almost as if I were there, as if Isadoro were lending me his eyes for a moment.

            It’s a hot day. The hottest day you’ve ever felt, that you could ever dream of. The air is a weight pressing you down. Your uniform is familiar, now, but no less suffocating as you stand in the sun. You can feel sweat collect, dry, collect. Unreachable patches of your skin itch. You’ve learnt to ignore them.

            You are watching. Waiting. Three-quarters of this game, you’ve learnt, is watching and waiting.

            You look at a building. It’s beige like everything else is beige. Except for the sky, which is always so blue that if you look straight up and squint your eyes it’s like you’re falling right through. Like most of the buildings in this town, in this land your people have failed, this building is chipped and worn. There’s a section on the side that’s missing, like a bite taken from an apple. There’s trash all around it, leaves shed in preparation for a spring that never comes. There’s a metal fence between you and the building but that too is half falling apart.

            The façade of the building is a series of precarious balconies, rows of black, blind eyes.

            Except for one. From one single balcony, a red cloth hangs. Too big to be a hijab, but you think it’s a similar material. Weightless. It’s moving, the corners rippling. The whole of it lifts every once in a while, like the ghosts of children running under their mother’s skirt. You can’t feel a breeze, and it’s like you’re looking at another world. A little rectangle of colour, poking through.

            You just watch it for a while and think of nothing.

 

**********

 

            I expect it to be a one-off thing, but it keeps happening. Not every time I ask him, but often enough to give me hope.

            He’ll sit on his stool and describe a scene, and I’ll draw. A dog with its nose pressed against one of the soldier’s hands. A group of children gathered around, eager to see the treats the soldiers have in store. A half-broken door, smoke all around, obscuring what’s on the other side. The lights of a village on a mountainside, the sparks of gunfire shattering the night.

            Sometimes, it’s obvious he’s been thinking about the memory all day. Others, we won’t even get to the memory. He will just sit there, lost in his head, closed off from me completely. I watch the cursive writing of his intrusive thoughts across his face, one word dragging another, and another, and another. On those occasions, I’ll just draw him, the grey and blue colours of his curved form, the distance between us.

            And, rarely, are the moments when he talks. _Really_ talks. The chosen memory will take him somewhere else and he’ll drift along, lost in it.

            He describes a meeting inside a hut. A circle of people; one half composed of local men, the other of foreign soldiers, with the hinge of the translator between them. Slowly, the scene expands. He talks about how, by the time Isadoro got there, there was no way to win the hearts of the Afghans. Too much harm had been done. The only in they had was through material change. Employment, money, goods. It equalled to a sense of purpose.

            Stability.

            Some of the soldiers would grouse about how greedy these people were. Obsessed with money. Always wanting more. It curdled Isadoro’s stomach. To the wealthy, the desire for money, the desperation to get it, is seen as greed. Those who know better see that true avarice lives in the obsession with _keeping_ money, not getting it. To those who know hunger—true hunger, the kind that doesn’t live encapsulated in the now but stretches forward, a shadow reaching into the foreseeable future—money is the light that will once and for all banish darkness. It’s why Democracy and Capitalism go hand-in-hand, Isadoro says. People seek freedom in the ball and chain of money.

            Isadoro would have done anything for the men and women fighting with him. Followed every command from above without hesitating in behaviour, but his head kept asking— _why?_

            “That’s why I joined the Ops, I guess,” he says. To help through strategy instead of simply force. To command and enact change from above. The dedication to his service shines through, almost solidified by his ability to be critical of the system he was in.

            He talks at me, and I listen. At me, because he seems to simply be sorting it out in his head, and I am just a witness to his testimony.

            No matter if he talks about a memory, or his service, or not at all, the experience is always exhausting. Sometimes, he’ll disappear straight into his room. Others, though, he’ll stay in the living room and eat with me.

 _Progress_ , I think, taking it one step at a time.

 

**********

 

            Some days are worse than others.

            One Tuesday I go into his room with an armful of clean sheets.

            “Hey. I know you don’t wanna sit for me today, but let’s change your sheets?” I say to the figure in the bed. Isadoro doesn’t move. “I’ll be a second. You can even take a shower and you’ll have a clean bed waiting for you,” I wheedle. He makes a huffing noise but doesn’t react otherwise.

            I set the sheets down on his desk and turn back to the bed.

            “Come on, Isadoro,” I say, impatient, head full of the end-of-year projects and studying I have to get back to. I don’t have time for this.

            When he doesn’t even turn to look at me, I pull at the sheet. He holds fast. I pull again. He yanks back. I pull harder. Finally, he sits up in a flurry, glaring.

“Stop!” he growls.

            “ _You_ stop!”

            “I’m not a fucking child!”

            I bite back my immediate response. “I know you’re not. I’m trying to help.”

            “I don’t need your fucking help! I can change my own fucking sheets!”

            “Obviously you-” I clench my teeth. My breath whistles between them. “Isadoro, it’ll just be a moment, and then you’ll have clean sheets,” I try to reason.

            “I don’t want clean sheets.”

            “Everybody wants clean sheets!”

            “ _I_ don’t! Don’t you get it? I. Don’t. Want. Clean. Sheets.”

            “Why? Why? Everybody deserves clean sheets.”

            “Not—I don’t want them. I don’t want them!”

            “Well _I_ want them!”

            “Then fucking take them!”

            “I want _you_ to have them!”

            “Fuck!” Isadoro flings his sheet to the side and jumps out of bed. He starts ripping the linen off the bed with such force that the mattress gets caught in the fitted sheet and bends, slamming down as it springs free. I try to grab the clean set from the desk, but he yanks them from me and starts to make the bed with such fury that it takes him several times to get the fitted sheet on.

            “Fuck!” he shouts in frustration.

            “Let me-”

            “Don’t!” he snaps. I let him do it, watching as he fights with the pillow until it’s a lumpy mess in its new cover. When he’s done, he gets back in, pulling the untucked sheet up to his chin and curling into a ball.

            I watch him breathe heavily for a minute, letting the frustration and guilt ferment in my stomach.

            I pick up the dirty sheets and leave.

 

**********

 

            Some days are better than others.

            I come back home to see him doing push-ups in the living room. It’s a ridiculous scene. The room smells faintly of sweat as it glistens on his rippling back. He’s breathing hard, face clean-shaven.

            I’ve never seen a porn video start like this, but all of them should.

            He catches me looking, and the expression on my face must give away exactly what I’m thinking because his smile is immediately feral. He collapses on his front for a moment before sitting back, legs sprawled open in front of him. The sweatpants slinging low on his hips are thin and utterly perfect.

            It feels like it’s been years since I last touched him like I want to right now.

            He must be thinking the same thing because suddenly he’s up. I meet him in the middle. I’ve missed him, not just his body but that look on his face, that light in his eyes, his smile.

            He pushes me against a wall as we kiss savagely. There is no patience, no moderation. There is only want.

            My nails rake across his back as he grinds against me, his thick thigh against my hardening cock, keeping up a rhythm that is immediately maddening. He lets up just enough to get a hand down the back of my opened pants and press a finger against my hole, over the cloth of my underwear. He starts grinding against me again and I moan and bite at his shoulder and bicep, at the impenetrable solidity of him.

            “Fuck you. Fuck you,” I say, and shove him off hard enough that he stumbles back.

            “Get the lube,” I order. He pauses for a moment as if stuck between two equally appealing possibilities but disappears a moment later.

            I rip the clothes off my body before walking over to the couch. I bend over the back of it, moaning slightly at the feeling of the material against my cock. I don’t give a shit about stains. I want to be fucked just like this.

Isadoro finds me like that, naked and draped over the back of the couch, rubbing myself off on it like an animal.

            “Jesus,” I hear him say behind me, and I’m so turned on even that has a shiver running through me.

            “Yeah. Come fuck me, come on,” I goad. I hear the sound of his sweatpants hitting the floor and then his big hands are on my hips, his leaking cock rubbing against my ass, slipping to the small of my back.

            “Fuck. Fuck,” he says as I press myself against him. His hands are gone for a moment. I hear the sound of a condom wrapper, the lid and squeeze of lube and then one of his hands is back on my hips while two fingers of the other breech me at once.

            “Yes,” I hiss, not knowing if to seek friction against the couch or if I want more of him. My decision is made for me, however, as he holds me in an almost bruising grip and pumps his fingers into my hole, stretching me mercilessly.

            I forget myself for a moment, the pleasure is so bright and blinding.

            “Come on, come on, come on,” my mouth is saying.

            Isadoro doesn’t need any more encouragement. One moment it’s his fingers and the next his cock is sliding into me, a thickness that fills me at once. I groan, my head hanging between my shoulders, but Isadoro is done playing around. He sets a pace that has me grunting against the couch, struggling to get a grip on the back cushion as he fucks me slow enough to be good and hard enough to be perfect.

            The slap of skin on skin, the noise of our breaths and groans, fill the living room obscenely. The past weeks disappear.

            I come untouched. It’s too good, the pleasure too much, and I just tip over the edge. I shoot against the back of the couch, my ass clenching around Isadoro’s dick. He drapes himself on me, mouth pressed against the back of my neck.

            The scent and warmth of him are so familiar.

            He comes with a deep groan I feel all the way through me, a rumble of the earth.

            It takes us a while to come down from it. I feel I’d slide right off the back of the couch and onto the floor if it weren’t for Isadoro’s panting, sweaty body pinning me in place.

Eventually, Isadoro hauls me back with a groan, and we round the couch, collapsing onto it.

            “Condom?” I ask half-coherently.

            “Uh…on the floor,” he says.

            “Jesus,” I laugh.

            We lay there, my body sprawled over his. His hand rubs against my back as my brain slowly comes back online.

            “Wait,” I say and get up on legs that are still a little wobbly, heading for my bag. I grab what I want and then return to the couch, stretching over Isadoro.

            “I made you something,” I say, and hand him the token. He takes it, lifting it up to his face to inspect it. It’s small enough to fit easily in all pockets, made of glazed clay of a deep brown. The design is simple, a circle with the imprint of a paw as if a small creature had passed upon the wet earth and it had been caught in amber.

            “It’s for when…if you ever have a nightmare or a bad memory and need to, you know. Remember you’ve been where you’ve been, but this is where you are now,” I say. I don’t want to say the word ‘grounding’ in case it clams him up, but the idea had come from what Mansur had said about techniques to bring a person back from a triggering event.

Isadoro looks at it for a while, passing his thumb over the grooves of the paw print. I watch him until he secures the token in his palm and then closes his hand around it. His eyes are serious and open as he looks back at me.

            “Thank you,” he says, voice quiet. I smile, the golden light of relief shining through me.

            I kiss him, just a press of lips, and feel him breathe against me.


	7. Chapter 7

The end of the school year approaches on the oscillating wavelength of good and bad days. There’s no pattern to it I can see. I was hoping that slowly, he would come out of his room more and more, farther and farther, but the tether tying him there will yank back at any moment, refusing to give more lead. Despite this, my collection of drawings grows steadily. Paint, charcoal, water and colour; fragments of memories from another life. 

            It's late on a Friday. The week has been brutal, and only more work awaits on the weekend. Sometimes I feel the only reason I’m not drowning is that I can’t afford it.

            I leave my stuff slumped in the living room. Everything is so quiet and still. I grab the sudden urge to cry by the throat and fling it away.

            I don’t have time for that. If I go there, I don’t know if I’ll be able to come back.

            My shadow stretches from me. It walks to Isadoro’s room and cracks open the door.

            “Can I come in?” it says. Isadoro must recognize its kind because he turns over immediately, looking at the creature. He nods. My shadow walks into the gloom of Isadoro’s room. I follow. 

            Instead of sitting on the edge of the bed, I get inside with him. The sheets are relatively clean and he smells nice, only the beginning of stubble on his jaw. Isadoro wraps his arms around me. He’s lost muscle mass, infected by the shadows in his own room, but his hold is tight and secure. I almost start crying again. I tamp it down.

            “You can say no, obviously, but…can I use some of your pictures for my final project?” I ask, my voice quiet in the strange, malleable air. Isadoro shifts a little against me, moving back just enough so our faces rest on the pillow. We look at the soft outline of each other’s features in the dark.

            “How many people are going to see them?”

            “The examiners, unless they’re chosen for the summer gallery show, and that would be anybody who went to the show. But I can turn that down.”

            “No.”

            “Okay-”

            “No, I meant don’t turn it down. You can use them, but don’t turn the show down.”

            “I haven’t even gotten it yet.”

            “You will,” he says with all the confidence in the shadowlands. I snort but smile. Something in me settles.

            Isadoro pulls away from me suddenly, rolling towards his bedside table. He turns on the lamp and I close my eyes, pushing my face into the pillow to guard them. I hear rustling, and then feel Isadoro rolling back towards me. I open my eyes.

            Like an offering between us, Isadoro is holding one of the clay animals I made him when we were young. My hands wrap around his, holding it with him, twisting the creature so it catches the light.

            I remember making it when I was eighteen out of real clay, painted and fired so it’s hard and shiny. The figure is a nebulous mass of curling smoke, caught in the shape of a prowling wolf. Its eyes stare back at you, a challenge. It dares you to touch what is his, to reap the consequences. The billows and muscles of the smoke seem to move when the light ripples across it as if you’ve caught it just at the right moment before it dissipates into something else.

            “The other ones are at home, but I keep this one with me,” he explains. I don’t have to ask him why this one.

            It’s the one that fits him the most.

            His other hand envelopes mine where it's tracing the grooves of the animal’s face. I look at him. He looks back.

            We fall into the kiss.

            The creature is placed carefully on the bedside table and we burn into each other. God, it feels so good to have him pressed against me. To have him in my hands, even if he turns to smoke when it ends.

            Each time we touch now, I feel desperate. Feel like yanking at his clothes and digging my fingers into him until they pierce skin and muscle and bone and I’m all inside him, but Isadoro is a tempering force. He drags the kisses on, and on, and I go with them. He rolls on top of me, pressing his whole body against mine, sinking my body into the bed. I let out a moan. I try arching against him, but I’m trapped.

            There’s nowhere I want to go.

            When the kisses have left my lips puffy and raw and wet, he pulls away and drags my shirt over my head. We undress, uncoordinated, slow, tripping over each other and kissing in between like we can’t help it. When we’re done, he presses me down again, his whole body against mine, and I almost can’t take it.

            This is what people don’t talk about. The simple pleasure of having someone else’s body against yours. All their skin and their rivets and the framework of their bones. The feel of their muscles, of their soft undersides, the dips and rises that make them. The small movements of their bodies, the rise of their chest against yours as you feel them breathe, the shudders of their skin.

Oh, their miles of skin. I can feel all of Isadoro’s textures. I feel the rough skin of his hands and the dryness of knees, the prickly hair down his stomach, the soft down across his ass. The little scars from battle, from childhood, markings on the canvas of him. All those little things that make him human. They all add up to one thing. _Isadoro_. The one person I’ve always loved.

            He opens me up with slow fingers. Takes his time, watching me, feeling my own skin and blood and organs and bones. He scissors two fingers wide and I moan at the sudden stretch, arching. He turns them around and hooks them, rubbing inside, and the pleasure is a trembling light. Blinding, perfect.

            I let my body be his. Let him look at me, settled under the shelter of his body. When he pulls his fingers out of me, I don’t protest. When he turns me around, I don’t question it. Trust is a clear water flowing between us.

            When he sinks into me, it's followed by the press of his body against mine. My hips are tilted up, but my chest is flat on the bed, my face turned sideways on the pillow so he can see me gasp and flush and say his name. He digs an arm under me, holding me close as his other one leans on the bed. When he starts thrusting, I feel it in my whole body. I feel it in the chest against my back. I feel it in his breaths against my neck. I feel it everywhere, inside and out, in the air all around me. It’s Isadoro. It’s always been him.

            His arm under me shifts and he tightens a fist around my cock. I mumble his name, or maybe that’s just in my head, as he starts stroking me. It’s a perfect tempo with his thrusts. The pleasure rises as a steady tide. The salty wash rides up, and up, and up until it reaches my feet and drags my whole body with it. It goes through every part of me. It washes me away.

Isadoro fucks me through it and then further still until his hips are stuttering. He buries his face in the back of my neck and I hear my name there, to be buried between skin and hair forever.

            We stay pressed close in the aftermath. Our panting breaths turn to soft silence until my voice comes out of nowhere to break it.

            “I went to the V.A. a few weeks ago,” it says. I don’t want anything in particular from this conversation. Suddenly, I just want him to know.

            “I just asked for advice. I just wanted to…know. That I wasn’t doing the wrong things. To try and know what’s going on,” I say. The silence that follows is long, but he doesn’t move away from me. His hand traces a line, up and down and up and down my back.

            “What did they say?”

            “That…you’re your own person. That I can’t be in charge of change, only facilitate it as far as you’ll let me. That trauma can take many shapes, but that the biggest thing right now may be the process of adjusting to civilian life. Stuff like that,” I say.

            This silence is even longer, but when he talks, he finally says something.

            “I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know why I’m in this fucking bed I can’t seem to leave. I was a Team Sergeant of a Special Ops Alpha Team, and now I’m throwing a fucking tantrum over making a bed. It’s like I don’t know myself. It’s like I’m trapped in somebody else’s body. A civilian body I just don’t know how to navigate,” he says in bursts of frustration. I don’t reply, sensing there’s more.

            “What am I even going to do here? I can’t go back. I just, I just can’t…but what else is there here? What, I’m gonna deal with fucking drunk people for the rest of my life, watching you get grabbed by sleaze-balls and having to shut up and be nice about it?

            “And I know I’m fucked up, okay? I know the way I’m thinking about things isn’t right. It’s like the line between mission and life is blurred, and I’m always looking for something to react to. There’s no structure, there’s no… _purpose_. I just…” he trails off, lost. I pull away slightly. He resists for a moment, but I push until I’m looking at him. He doesn’t look back.

            “Isa, that’s what normal life is like. In the military, there’s always someone telling you what to do. Mission, rest, mission, uniform, formation, team. Sure, there’s a sense of purpose, but a lot of it is decided for you. In life, civilian life, there are periods of _doing_ , and periods of _figuring shit out_. We all feel like we should be doing, doing, doing all the time. And I get how this can be worse if you’re used to not just doing, but doing something purposeful, life-threatening, filled with adrenaline—all those things. What you have to get used to now is the fact that, here, the purpose is preceded by having to find it. With times of feeling like you’re going nowhere simply because you’re not there yet.

“That’s the thing about being lost. You can walk, but every step can feel meaningless if you convince yourself it’s not taking you to the place you want to go—if you don’t even know where that is. It’s easy to stop in the middle of the forest and give up. But you need to put value in just putting a foot in front of the other, putting effort into just moving, and trusting you’ll learn enough about the forest to figure it out,” I say. The advice is for me as much for him; for my past selves, for every future self that is still filled with doubt.

            “You trained two years with the Ops. Think of this period as training. Of collecting information. Of adjustment to a new environment. Look at it as the planning stages of a mission, instead of the mission itself.”

            “How? How do I even get that information? I don’t even know where to look!”

            “That’s the point! That’s life! You don’t know. None of us fucking knows. We’re all fucking faking it. Adulthood is bullshit. Everyone is a mess. Just think of _one_ thing. One class. One activity. One like. One skill you want to develop. One person you admire. Just one thing, and explore. Not with a mission already in mind, but without expectation. Just for the sake of exploring. If you like it? Great. If you don’t? Fantastic. Knowing where not to go is as useful as knowing where to head so, just…explore,” I say. Isadoro looks at me.

            “I’m just so…tired,” he admits. I can see the shame on his face and lift my hand to stroke it away.

            “I know. It’s a lot. It’s so much. Being tired is okay. Staying in bed is okay. But not forever. It’s not easy, but you need to take one step. Just one. Forget about the others. Just one step.”

            Isadoro closes his eyes, but I don’t feel like he’s shutting me out.

“Go away with me,” I say. Isadoro’s eyes open again. “A friend of mine has a little boat. We know how to sail, so…go away with me. I’ve got a few weeks between my last project and the start of work as the pieces get graded. We’ll go along the coast. It’ll be like fucking me; a transition to normalcy.”

            Isadoro looks at me. He cups my hand still on his face.

            “Just think about it,” I say. He nods and pulls me close again.

            We rest.

 

**********

 

            Iva barrels into the studio and fake-ballets towards me.

            “Guess who got into the summer showing?” she sing-songs. I look at her. “You! And me. But also, you!” she says. I jump up from my stool.

            “Really?”

            “Yeeees!” she cheers. My heart races. The summer showing is every art student’s dream.

            “Oh my God!” I shout, stumbling over a bag of stuff and almost tipping Iva over with an enthusiastic hug. She doesn’t seem to mind.

            “We’re the best!” she laughs, hugging me back.

            I tell Isadoro as soon as I get home. He’s out of bed, not doing much but in the living room. He takes a moment to process the words and then grins, his expression so wide and clear it cracks something inside me. He jumps over the back of the couch and picks me up, twirling me around as I giggle and hit him playfully.

            “Told you,” he teases. I stick my tongue out at him. He looks at me. “Let’s go on that trip,” he says. I feel my expression drop into surprise and then lift again.

            “Yeah?” I say. He nods, looking determined.

            “Yeah.”

            The end of the school year passes in a mess of stress. Time compresses and expands on a will of its own and I am simply dragged along. The future fades from the picture. All I can think about is the now.

            I text Jack half-coherent updates. She replies in emoticons to make me laugh.

Isadoro, to my astonishment, signs up to take a sailing class. I don’t make a fuss about it, but it fills me with hope and energy. Some evenings he’ll sit on the couch as I do my homework, practising knots. I try not to get distracted by his hands winding the rope into intricate shapes, their grace and purpose.

            I feel the flicker of hope expand.

            Despite my focus on it, the end of exams and deadlines comes as a surprise. Suddenly, I’m done. There are no more chapters to study, assignments to do, vectors to obsess over, layers to tweak, tonal differences to lose my head over. It’s done.

            I’m done.

            I sleep for fourteen hours in Isadoro’s bed. When I wake up, he makes me breakfast. The anticlimactic hollowness that follows end-of-year exams is present, but it’s obscured by relief and the tentative excitement of the trip ahead of me.

            The next few days are busy with preparations. Isadoro has taken care of almost all of it. It’s like the mission has brought him back to life. I know the stilts this provides are temporary, but that’s life.

            One step first.

            Iva invites me out for a celebratory get-together before we leave. Isadoro stays home, but I’m eager to go out and drink the previous few weeks away.

            Everybody is buoyant and worried. Although Iva is younger than Joaquin and Ezra, we’re all finishing college this year together due to the different lengths of our majors, the future looming in front of us.     

“It’s an online thing,” Ezra explains, referring to the job he’s landed. “It’s a crappy position but it has a good ladder, you know? I’m more than fine with slumming it for a while if there’s something to move towards, you know?”

            “The position isn’t _that_ crappy, not for a graduate,” Joaquin interjects. “And the online magazine is amazing.”

            “Well…” Ezra says, colouring slightly. As confident and flirtatious as he can often seem, he’s distinctly uncomfortable with praise. He lights up under Joaquin’s, though. “The article book you and Iva put together definitely helped.”

            “The writing in the article—that you did—definitely helped, yes,” Joaquin counters. Ezra rolls his eyes, but their fingers lace together. I see Joaquin squeeze back.

Joaquin hasn’t been quite so lucky in the job department, but he got an unpaid internship he says he’ll probably accept, having avoided the full depth of the student-loan trap by his football scholarship.

            “Well, we can’t all be Moore,” Ezra says, smiling as he refers to their friend’s talks with the NFL. A teammate of Joaquin’s, but considerably more dedicated to football, he’s already off to some training program despite the fact that exams just finished.

            “The boy just doesn’t stop,” Iva says, grinning proudly. It’s sort of surreal to know someone, even tangentially, so poised for fame.

            “Okay, what is with this music?” Iva says suddenly. “I swear they’ve played _She Wolf_ like ten times since we got here.”

            “Isn’t Dex DJing?” Ezra asks. Iva goes off to investigate.

            By the time I get home, I’m in the stumbling level of drunk, and happily so. I stagger to Isadoro’s room and throw myself onto his bed. It’s late and he shifts beside me.

            “Wow. You smell like a brewery.”

            “Mmmm, brewerery,” I slur. Isadoro snorts beside me. I open my eyes to look at him.             “So pretty,” I say, pawing at his face. “Sooo pretty.”

            Isadoro catches my wrist as he laughs.

            “Wow,” he says.

            “No wow. Yes yes. Let’s make out.” I open my mouth as wide as it’ll go.

            “Never thought I’d say no to that but it’s gonna be a hard pass this time, buddy,” he laughs. I close my mouth and pout.

            “You are mean. Mean. You’re a meany beanie baby.” I fall forward and kiss his face, leaving a sloppy trail as I mash my lips to his cheeks.

            “Oh my God,” he says, catching my face in his hands and pulling it away. I look at him imploringly. He sighs through a grin, shaking his head, and presses his lips against mine. I make a happy sound and he does it again and again, soft, sweet presses. I stick my tongue out and poke it against one of his nostrils. Isadoro rears back so violently he knocks against the bedside table.

            “What the hell was that!” he shouts, scrubbing at his nose madly. I cover my face with my hands, rolling around in the bed.

            “It wasn’t me!” I wail. Isadoro starts laughing.

            “You are out of control,” he says, catching me on one of my rolls.

            “Let me go! You’ve rejected me and I’m moving to France to be a _croquete_.”

            “How do you even come up with this stuff?”

            “It’s the Goose. The Vodka Goose. It talks to me in my head.”

            “Well that’s terrifying,” he says.

            “Mmm. You are so soft. Hard, but soft. Like an enchilada. Let’s make out.”

            “Nope. Let’s sleep. Come on,” he says and proceeds to undress my very uncooperating body and then get it under the sheets with him. “Jesus, that was hard work,” he says when he’s finished. I cuddle up against him and he immediately pulls me closer.

            “You are a very nice Daddy.”

            “Holy God. Please go to sleep.”

            “Okay,” I say, and sleep.

 

**********

 

            We pack our things and take a bus to the coast. It smells like gasoline and the unwashed fabric of the seats, like buses should smell in the summer when you’re trying to escape. Everybody keeps the windows open even on the highway, and the noise and the rush of the air makes it seem like we’re flying.

            Isadoro moves with purpose. He grabs my hand as we get off the bus so as not to lose each other in the crowd. I press close to him. The people around us smell like sweat and skin. So do we.

            We have to walk to the next bus stop. We wait under its rectangle of shade, licking at melting Ice Pops. The sun scorches the flat land all around us, miles of yellow until you look up and it’s blue, blue, blue.

            The next bus arrives. This one is a long, thin bug. It scuttles to a stop in front of us and we hide our bags in its belly. Isadoro lets me have the window seat again. I look outside as we join the other flying bugs, watching the sun bounce off their hard backs, their wings fluttering in the light.

            When the sun sets, it transforms everything. Orange and pink and the most diaphanous of blues as far as the eye can see. As night falls, the bugs all around us turn to fireflies.

So do we.

 

**********

 

            The boat is resting peacefully on the dock water as we finally arrive. Isadoro and I grin at each other at the sight. The smell of sea air, the faint tinge of gasoline, the call of seagulls overhead. It’s not a bad welcome.

            We drop our stuff on the wooden walkway and get to work.

            Isadoro pulls the line attaching the boat to the docks until it’s close enough. He steps onto the deck, one foot before the other. He gets over the low metal rail and then crouches down and keeps the rope taut as I do the same.

We unhook the thick plastic sheet covering the cockpit. I fold it on the bow of the boat to avoid the boom as Isadoro unlocks the wooden panel hiding the inner part of the boat. He slides the wooden panel up until it leaves the rivets on either side, setting the plank aside. He goes down two miniscule steps to the boat’s belly and I follow, curious.

            Inside there is a small, round table in the middle, screwed to the floor and lipped upwards so things don’t fall off it. At either side of the make-shift door extends a thin line of counter-space, sunken to keep things in. On the right, on the bulkhead, is a radio. Stretching from the counters, lining the sides, are low benches covered in flat, foam pillows, travelling the length of the bulkhead until they pass under the table. The rest of the small space, under the bow part of the deck, is an extension of the benches, a triangle bed covered in larger versions of the foam pillows. In the shadow of the peak hide a few real pillows. There are a pair of long nets hanging on either side of the bed to place things, and smaller nets hanging at the opposite corners of the room, by the door. There’s a section of the top that slides back to let more sun in, but we keep it shut for now.

            The cockpit is even smaller. It’s made out of a white plastic, rough on the floor and seating to create grip. The seating is just two built-in, bench-like structures. Their tops come off, hiding more storage space. The boom hangs from the mast, cutting the air above the cockpit in half when it’s rigged still, although it swings once it’s loosened. At the stern of the boat is the tiller—the wooden stick that controls the rudder under the boat.

            The small boat is equipped with a motor and sails, the latter of which are lowered and tucked against the boom, wrapped in a blue, impermeable cloth. Already stored on the boat are some provisions, including sheets, towels, buckets, fishing line, knives, a lighter, a compass, a tiller extension, goggles, fins, and a navigator, which attaches to the tiller to keep it still at a certain angle.

            If you want to cook, or pee, or take a shit, you’ve got to use your imagination.

I pass Isadoro the folded cover-sheet so he can store it inside. He follows me to the deck and pulls the painter—the rope used to tie the boat to the dock—taut as I step out. I pass him our stuff and we store it before sliding the wooden panel back in place and washing the boat with the hose in the water station between our boat and the next.

            We’re already sweating by the time we’re done, but we leave the boat to dry as we go and get provisions. Canned foods, dried food, bread, lots of water, chapstick, sunblock. We buy snacks, a boogie board, and two of those floating sticks you inevitably smack your friend against the ass with whenever one is near. 

            It’s late by the time we’ve done everything. The docks are near a bustling part of the fishing town, and we walk down the lit, open streets. We follow the smell of frying fish and have a dinner of breaded cod and fries. The batter is perfectly seasoned, the potatoes crisp at the edges. We sit outside and watch people walk by. In the low light and the sea air, Isadoro looks so beautiful it hurts.

            We keep walking after dinner, but we’re both tired and turn back soon. Everything is muffled at the docks, the sound of people disappearing into the waves. We wash up at the harbour facilities and return to the boat. We climb inside, sliding the top back to let air in, and climb into the bed for the first time. We’ve shed almost all our clothes in the warmth but lay close. I watch Isadoro in the starlight until my eyes drift shut.

            The air is a tinkle of boat masts and lapping waves.

            We fall asleep.

 

**********

 

            We wake with the sun, but the docks are already stirring with life. We get everything ready and set off, making sure we have enough gas before turning on the motor and veering out of the harbour.

            Open sea meets us.

            When we’re far enough from the docks, we turn off the motor. I keep the bow windward, squinting at the little weathervane at the top of the mast as Isadoro unfurls the sails. He pulls the main line until the mainsail hits the top of the mast, luffing wildly in the wind. I pull the tiller so the boat falls to the side, facing the direction we want to go in. Isadoro tightens the line until the sail is taut, billowing into a _beam reach_ position as the wind hits us from the side. The boat tilts as Isadoro trims the sails to the perfect position and we gain pace.

Being lighter, I move to the bench at the falling side, while Isadoro moves to the rising side, ducking under the boom. He holds the ropes loosely in his hand, having latched them to the teethed clip in the middle of the cockpit deck while I do most of the work keeping the boat en rumbo.

            It’s always been this way. Me, straining my softer muscles on the tiller while he remains watchful to any change that might necessitate action.  

            There is no need to talk. The rush of the wind and the water does it for us, hitting the front of the boat and adding to the impression of speed, of freedom. The dome of the sky is endless. Everything is endless around us.

            I look at Isadoro, and the smile on his face steals my breath. It’s an expression from childhood, of climbing trees and winning races.

            I get the urge to cry without crying, overwhelmed by the emotion. He catches my eyes and I feel the warmth of his smile. I smile back.

 

**********

 

            We sail all day. At lunchtime, we eat the tuna sandwiches we prepared before we left. We throw bits of bread at the passing waves and a group of seagulls start following us, not letting up for miles. I sunburn. Isadoro tans. The saltwater air disinfects our worries.

We reach the next port just as the sun is suggesting its goodbye. We’ve booked places in each of the ones we’ll be staying at, and I steer us carefully until we find the empty spot.

            We clean up and wash the boat before heading to the harbour showers. The water tastes almost sweet against my lips after a day of salt. I run it cold and it’s the simplest of pleasures against my heated skin.

            We take a walk around the port town, but the sun of the day has bleached us into a deep, luring exhaustion. We eat dinner and head back to our swaying home.

            We lay under just a thin layer of sheets, close again. Isadoro runs his finger ever-so-slightly across my burnt nose. My eyelashes flutter for a moment.

            “Most of my team—my ex-team—are on leave. Some of them live near one of our stops. I’ve told them I’m stopping by…” Isadoro says.

It takes me a moment to process the words. My eyes widen when they hit me, and I struggle not to react. I hadn’t even known he kept in touch with them. This feels like such a huge step, somehow. A thread acknowledged between past and present.

            “We could have dinner together?” I say evenly. Isadoro nods.

            “Yeah. That sounds good.”

            “I can stay on the boat if you want, or-”

            “That’s not necessary. It’d be cool for you to meet them finally,” he says. I’ve seen or briefly talked to each member of the team at one point or another through the phone or skype, so the idea makes me smile.

            “Yeah, I’d love that actually.”

            “They want to meet you too.”

            “Who lives the closest?” I ask.

            “Muhafiz. He lives right by the coast. Being the Commo Guy— The Communications Sergeant—he carries all the tech, so he has the heaviest bag, you know? So, you’ve seen him, he’s huge—Muhafiz isn’t his actual name, that’s what one of the tanks are called—and I swear to God. I saw him swim once and we all thought he’d sink like a rock, and then the motherfucker starts cutting through the water like a fish. My jaw hit the floor, he was like a speedboat. We’d all forgotten he came from a seaside town,” he laughs. I grin.

            “Who else is gonna be there?”

            “David, Ricky, and Doc. They’re travelling down.”

            “I bet they can’t wait to see you,” I say. He shrugs, but there’s a smile on his face.

            The clang of the boats and the slight sway of the water is soporific, and I watch as Isadoro drifts off. It’s the first time since his return that I see him fall asleep. I follow, with ease.

 

**********

 

            Isadoro twitches in his sleep. Even in the dark, I’ll be able to see the furrow in his brow, his tense body moving with a restless spirit.

            Sometimes, he wakes up like he’s escaping something, and for a moment it will follow him into wakefulness, its claws and teeth reflected in his eyes. He’ll take a breath like it’s his first after drowning and I let him come down from it before touching him softly, asking for him back.

            The things that keep him awake at night are on this boat with us now. They curl up during the day, but hunt in the dark, when his mind softens and turns porous.

Now, though, they have more space to roam. They have the open sky and the ink of the ocean and the wood of the docks. They’re not trapped in a room with him, a tangled mass writhing in the shadows.

            They’re here, but they can breathe now. And so can we.  


	8. Chapter 8

We stay a few days at our next stop.

            The town is beautiful, with white houses that remind me of old movies set in France or Italy. Open balconies with hanging plants dot the façades with colour. The roads are thin and winding, rising sharply on steep hills devoid of people. There are cats everywhere, lounging in the shadows, following us with their uninterested eyes. Isadoro tries to make friends with them, and a few rub against us, following us for a little while before disappearing again.

            We take the boat out and anchor it at one of the bays. We get the goggles and fins out, running the flame of a lighter briefly over the glass of the goggles and then spitting inside them to avoid smudging.

            We throw ourselves into the sea and explore the rock and sand at the cheeks of the bay, swimming alongside it and to the curve of the headland. We breathe through our snorkels, eyes on the underwater landscape. We follow small schools of fish that glitter away from us when we get too close. We graze tentatively at the black spikes of the sea urchins camouflaged against the dark rocks. Isadoro spots a flatfish and we watch it burrow in the sand and settle, hidden from sight. We swim, and swim, and swim, becoming part of the wildlife until our muscles and lungs burn.

            When we exhaust ourselves, we return to our floating home and haul ourselves out. Everything is salt and the sting of the sun. We eat our pack lunches and then swim to the shore of the bay where we nap in the sand, getting up periodically to cool ourselves in the water.

            When we steer the boat back to the harbour, our skin is stretched tight across our bodies. The shower that follows is one of the best experiences of my life. The water is even sweeter than that first shower. I feel like a layer of myself has been shed and left in the waves where it’s always belonged. My body and soul has been made light.

            After the sun has set, we go to dinner. We hold hands as if we’re on our honeymoon. It feels like the start of something. I don’t think about our inland home, miles away now in another world.

            I ask Isadoro about his fellow soldiers. He smiles as he talks about them, the memories a buoy instead of a drowning anchor.

            “He was like a sniffer dog,” he says of one of the members of his battalion. “Every time we thought we’d find nothing at the raid, he’d find the stash. One time, he noticed a screw just a bit too loose on a pipe, and a minute later we had our hands on a bunch of loaded magazines stuffed inside,” he recounts. “That’s how he got the nickname Hound.”

            “What’s _your_ nickname?” I laugh.

            “Ah-ah.”

            “I’m gonna find out when we meet up with them anyway!” I say. He just shrugs, smiling at me. 

            “Fine. Just you wait,” I say. He laughs, and it rings out like a bell.

            We walk along restaurants with their tables spilling out, the sound of the waves hitting the rocks around us. Everybody seems to be out, and I see couples holding hands, young and old and everything in between.

            “When you said you’d fucked guys when you were, you know, out there…didn’t you ever find someone you wanted to stay with?” I ask, not letting the thought linger long in my head before it's out. Isadoro turns his head to look at me.

            “No.”

            “But the relationships you made out there must have been intense.”

            “Yeah, but I wouldn’t sleep with people in my battalion. That would have been a massively bad idea for so many reasons.”

            “How was it like, being Team Sergeant? You never talked much about it,” I ask.      Isadoro pauses for a moment, thinking.

            “I wasn’t the Captain, so I didn’t have much influence on mission structure, but I could influence enough to make sure my team was safe and that the people we were there to help were a priority. It was why I joined the Ops in the first place, so…”

            “Sounds like a lot of responsibility.”

            “Yes. But being a soldier is a responsibility. You feel responsible for everybody in your team, no matter your rank. In my first year of deployment…remember the kid that had the accident with the tank?”

            I remember exactly who he’s referring to. It had been a new recruit who liked to help with mechanical maintenance. By that time, the tanks had already been upgraded, but there were still some old ones in operation which had to be ‘pimped up’ on the fly so they could survive IEDs. Tanks were crucial but could quickly become a liability when hit, because soldiers weren’t allowed to leave them in the field, even when disabled, to avoid the opposition getting their hands on them and taking advantage of the machinery. They had to be tweaked so they were not only resistant to that kind of attack but could be moved easily when disabled.

            This particular tank had been altered so many times it had fucked with its integrity. The kid had been doing some work on it when a piece blew up a few inches from him. It hadn’t killed him, but it had injured him severely—an injury that would last a lifetime.

            “Yeah, I remember.”

            “We all felt responsible for that. We all thought we should have done something, as stupid as that sounds. War—they say nothing is fair in war, but that’s what you’re out there to do, in your head. To do something fair. To help the regaining of balance. We know we’re risking our lives, and that so are the people around you, but it’s with a purpose. But that…that was just so fucked up. So…”

            “Unfair.”

            “Yeah. So, yeah, it was a responsibility. But there comes a point when you feel something so much, you can’t tell the difference when there’s more of it.”

The memory of him telling me about that particular accident is crystallized in my mind. I remember Isadoro’s drawn face on the stuttering Skype line, looking young and tired and miles away. It had added a new fear to my long list of fears. I’d hid it deep inside, where he wouldn’t see it. I’d wanted him to tell me these things, to still be the person he could open up to when he needed someone by his side.

Now, though, the stakes aren’t as high. He’s already here with me.

            “I’m so glad you came back,” I say softly, feeling the truth of it deeply.

            We go back to the boat in a shroud of deep, star-filled darkness. We enter the cave of the boat and turn on a small lamp attached to the side. It’s our small space in this world, an ember glowing in the dark.

            Isadoro goes out again for a moment to check on the chafe gear keeping the boat from bumping into the ones on the side. I take off my shoes and clothes, placing them in one of the hanging nets. I wait for him. He pauses at the entrance for a moment when he sees me, before climbing inside. He sits on the bench opposite me and starts unlacing his sneakers, but I kneel at his feet and push his hands away. I undo the knots, loosening the cords carefully before pulling the shoes off. I slip his ankle socks off, stuffing them in each shoe. I kneel up, undoing the buttons and zipper of his board shorts and then slide them down his thighs and off. The rustle of fabrics fills the small space.

            When I reach for his shirt, he meets my eyes, expression intense and quiet. I lift his shirt up, sliding my hands across his flanks, his chest, his arms. When the shirt is off, my hands return to his skin, cataloguing him. Despite his weeks in bed, he still has some of his definition, the ridges of his stomach harder to get rid of. I trace them, raking my nails up until my thumbs brush against a nipple. His breath catches in his throat.

            My hands travel down again, over his boxers but avoiding the bulge already growing there. I stroke the hair on his thighs, teasing him as my touch turns feathery at the sensitive skin inside his thighs. Reflexively, he widens the splay of his legs and I settle there. I bend down and finally give him the attention he wants. I nuzzle at his clothed dick, running the bridge of my nose against it, my closed lips, before opening my mouth and pressing my tongue there.

            He makes a noise, a little, cracked thing, and his hand lifts to my head, simply carding its fingers there. I do it again and again until the white material of his tight boxers is translucent and wet from my mouth. His cock has hardened and the head peaks from the waistband. I lick my tongue against it and then suck tightly. He grunts, shifting abruptly, but I follow the movement. I keep sucking, pressing hard with my tongue at his slit until he’s breathing hard and squirming restlessly.

            “Iván,” he says, clutching my hair a little tighter. I hum loudly, letting the vibrations travel. “Jesus.”

            He pulls me up and I go. He bends to meet me in the middle and kisses me deeply, our mouths opening at once, eating each other up with hunger. I run my hands across his hair, cut just before we left, and pull him closer.

            It’s like I can’t get enough.

            We stumble up in the small space, knocking into each other as we shed our underwear and turn off the light. I’m already hard just from tasting and having him so close. We crawl onto the bed and lay on our sides facing each other, tangling our limbs until we are a creature of myth, multi-limbed but hearts conjoined.

            My skin knows his hands. It knew them when we were small and we play-fought in the orange-scented earth. It knew them when they pulled me after him or helped me up. It knew them when I was a teenager and wanted him fatally, with hormones and friendship and a coalescing love. It knew them when they turned purposeful and wise to the secrets of my body, to its ripples and its wants and all its warm places. It knew them even when they were gone, imagining them in another landscape but still mine, a phantom limb. And it knows them now, relearning my plains and tides, the depths that are still there for him.

            He moves away just long enough to get the lube from one of the hanging nets before he’s back. I roll onto my other side, back facing him. He presses against it and kisses my shoulder, my neck. I stretch to give him more space and he doesn’t hesitate, making my skin his. He uncaps the lube and coats his fingers. He reaches between us and I lift my knee towards my chest as I feel him at my entrance. I shudder as he presses one thick finger inside and then out again, setting a slow pace that is more feeling than pleasure.

            He bites at my neck lightly as he slips in another. I can feel the stretch now. He moves his fingers until he rubs against my prostate and I moan low in my throat, pressing back against him. He pulls his fingers back and scissors them open right at my entrance.

            “Jesus. Fuck,” I say. He laughs softly into my neck.

He stretches me with a thoroughness that has me feeling every moment. It’s a rare intimacy, having someone so focused on your body without attending to their own, but without the blinding force of heightened pleasure. I become aware of my body, of his, of each of his decisions and movements.

            When he adds a third finger, he tilts my head towards him and lifts himself on an elbow, kissing me. I can barely coordinate my lips as he pushes his digits deep inside, sparking the small of my back and the pit of my stomach.

            “Please,” I say. He hums against my mouth, against my temple, before moving slightly away. I pant in the starlight of the bed as he goes to get a condom.

“Wait,” I stop him. “I’m clean, if you, if you’re-”

“Yeah, I’m clean.”

“Please,” I say to a question he didn’t need to ask, wanting him bare inside me suddenly, desperately. He bends over and kisses me, an answer of his own.

He presses against me again, his hips tilted back, before fucking into me in a long slide. I bite at the sheets, it’s so much and so good. Despite his slow preparation, his thrusts are deep snaps of his hips. Each hit is a light burst into life. The noises I’m making must travel across the water, across the endless sky, but I don’t care. I’m too lost in this for anything else to matter.

            “Isa, Isa,” I pant as the iron band of his arm tightens around me. The pleasure rises. His breath is on my neck, my shoulder. I can feel his teeth and his tongue, his fingers digging into me until I can’t take it anymore.

            I close my eyes. For a moment, as I tip off the brink, it’s like I’m melting into him. Like I’m part of what he is, dissolving and solidifying and dissolving again.

I feel him still inside me. Feel him shudder and say my name. I get lost in the sound of it, in its desperate stretch. Of the feel of his warmth spilling inside me.

            I make a noise of protest when he slips out of me, but he curls around me again and I hold his arms where they are wrapped around me.

            The last thing I know is a kiss to the curve of my shoulder, a press of his lips.

 

**********

 

            When Isadoro had graduated from his Special Ops training, he had been assigned to one of the Alpha teams—combat teams referred to as _A Detachments_ or _A-Teams_. These Special Forces teams are unique in being allowed to conduct ‘unconventional warfare’, of which the goal is to promote regional stability through interdiction—the use of direct action and reconnaissance tactics to tip the balance by syphoning morale and resources from the hostile forces to the local people. The pamphlet for unconventional warfare describes a wider, political vision instead of being confined by just military goals. A-teams are supposed to run on a philosophy of being aware of the wider consequences their mission’s actions might have. Not just in terms of damage to the enemy, but damage to the relationship between the U.S. and the locals.

            How successful those tactics have been in their goal is something I wouldn’t be able to answer.

            A-Teams are composed of twelve people; a ten-strong operating team under the supervision of a Detachment Commander with the rank of Captain, and a Detachment Technician. The operating team, composed of the people who actually engage in the combat missions, is led by the Team Sergeant, which Isadoro had been promoted to after the then-team-sergeant had been injured. Isadoro had been supported by the Assistant Operation Sergeant, the only woman and the now-leader of the A-team. Under them, the positions had come in pairs, with a Sergeant and Assistant Sergeant in each; two Engineering Sergeants, two Weapons Sergeants, two Medical Sergeants, and two Communications Sergeants.

Now, as we make it to the restaurant Muhafiz had suggested, we spot four of his fellow Sergeants waiting outside. Isadoro had told me plenty about them over the phone when he was deployed, and I had seen them in pictures and on Skype, but it’s striking to see them there, solid and unpixellated.

            Muhafiz spots us first. Like Isadoro had mentioned, he’s a big guy, with the dark skin of Pakistani descent and a large, square head, as if a child had tried to draw a house but got a face instead. He nudges the guy next to him, Doc, the Medical Sergeant, who couldn’t be more different in appearance. With the fairer skin of inland Philippines, his face is long and narrow. Where Muhafiz is a crude drawing, Doc is painted by a traditional Japanese brush, depicting the round lines of a kitsune.

            The other two people, both Weapons Sergeants, turn as well.

            “Team Daddy!” Ricky shouts, waving widely. My mouth falls open, and I slowly turn to grin at Isadoro.

            “Team Da-”

            “Don’t even,” he cuts me off. I laugh.

            “Must you with the noise?” David is saying as we approach.

            “You know I’m deaf in one ear!” Ricky protests.

            “That’s your own fault for not using the appropriate protection.”

            “Urgh, you and your appropriate protection. You probably use like ten condoms at once.”

            “Actually, using various condoms increases the chance-”

            “Dorado!” Ricky cuts David off and jumps to give Isadoro a hug. Whereas David is slim and sober-looking, his serious eyes peering from a dark-skinned face, Ricky is a compact brick. He’s Chilean, explaining Isadoro’s “Dorado” nickname origin, and a very loud counterpart to David.

            “Hey, Ricky,” Isadoro laughs as they pat each other on the back.

            “Aren’t you glad you don’t have to deal with _that_ anymore?” David says as he embraces Isadoro.

            “Hey!” Ricky protests.

            “Kinda missed him, actually,” Isadoro says, slugging and hugging Muhafiz and Doc in turn.

            I’m not left out of the welcome. Each of them hug and pat me on the back like I’m a fellow soldier too, saying how glad they are to finally meet me.

            “Me too. We’ve got so much dirt to exchange on this guy,” I say, pointing a thumb at Isadoro, who rolls his eyes.

            “I knew I liked you,” Ricky says.

            “Let’s go to our table. I got us one on the patio, facing the beach,” Muhafiz says.

            “Man, are you trying to wine and dine us? Never knew you had it in you, nerd,” Ricky says.

            “I’m sorry, who is single out of the two of us?” Muhafiz says, causing David to laugh. Ricky turns to him.

            “Et tu, David?” he says, clutching at his chest.

            We are guided by a waitress to the patio. I’m confused for a moment when she points us to an already occupied table, but as the woman turns her head to us I immediately recognize her. It’s Callie, Isadoro’s second-in-command.

Isadoro stops in his tracks, face falling in surprise, and then lighting up completely.

            “Callie!”

            “Surprise!” She grins back, and they meet in the middle, embracing. Isadoro holds her tight, and my heart squeezes for him. I am starkly grateful for this trip, this moment, these people, for putting that expression on Isadoro’s face.

            “Okay, okay, let’s sit down,” Doc says. Isadoro and Callie break apart with a laugh, and we all ignore its watery quality, sitting around the round table.

            Between ordering drinks and food, the table is a beehive of conversation. I sit back and listen, watching their familial interactions and jokes. They catch each other up on civilian life. Doc talks about his recently-born baby and how he’s going to transfer to a military hospital based in the U.S. at the end of the next tour. He shows us pictures of the baby, who looks like a small fox, peering at the camera through narrowed eyes.

            Muhafiz talks about his new girlfriend, breaking all military stereotypes by blushing as he speaks about her, to Ricky’s delight. Callie is asked about her mom, who is now out of the hospital after a gallbladder operation. We order food to share and Ricky and David argue over the pronunciation of the word ‘Worcestershire’. Ricky gesticulates wildly but stops himself short with a wince.

            “Be careful, will you? You’ll undo all my good work,” Doc admonishes.

            “What happened?” Isadoro says, and it’s clear they haven’t told him about this.

            “Just a bit of shrapnel in the shoulder. May have miscalculated just a smidge on one of the demolitions.”

            “It wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t stupid enough to insist on watching your own explosions,” David says, and it’s obvious this is an old argument with an undercurrent of real fear and frustration.

            “But they’re so pretty!”

            “If you want something pretty I’ll give you a picture of my face,” Callie says. “Don’t fucking do it again.”

Isadoro is silent throughout all of this, and Callie turns towards him, pointing a finger at his face. “And you. Don’t you dare do whatever it is you’re doing right now,” she barks. Isadoro startles slightly. I look around, taking in the other’s sudden seriousness, Doc’s cutting eyes.

            “I’m not-”

            “Yeah, you are, and I get it. We all get it. But you gotta trust us, even if that means letting us go a little. You were a great team leader, Dorado, but I’m just as good. Each of us has parts to play in life, and this one is over for you. I’m sorry if that hurts, but it’s gotta be this way. You gotta respect us enough to know that we were good with you, and we’re good without you, and that even if something happens I will have done everything you would have, and more. You got that?” Callie says.

Isadoro looks at her. There’s a complicated expression on his face. It’s one of those emotions that don’t have names, that are fragments put together, a mosaic of mourning, acceptance, fear, respect.

            Slowly, he nods. I watch in silence, my heart rabbiting. I know this isn’t going to cut through all the ties still hooking Isadoro into his feelings of responsibility, but it might weaken them just enough to make a difference.

            “Aw, Papi is having a hard time watching his kids grown up. Don’t worry, I’ll still hit you up for pocket money,” Ricky says, breaking the tension. Isadoro rolls his eyes, reaching over the table to punch his arm.

            “And now you have other people to take care of,” Muhafiz says, pointing his chin at me.

            “You mean to be overbearing of,” I joke, sticking my tongue out at Isadoro when he looks at me.

            “How’s the degree going, by the way?” Doc asks me. My eyebrows raise a little in surprise.

            “Oh. Good. Finished. I get my grades when we go back,” I say.

            “We hear your pictures got chosen to be shown at an exhibition,” Muhafiz says. Now my eyebrows really lift up. I look at Isadoro, who must have told them.

            “Oh, yeah. I’m actually really looking forward to that,” I say, and the conversation stays on me for a while. It’s not intrusive, but I’m stunned at how much they know about me. Sure, I’ve talked to them every once in a while, but the conversation had been composed of superficial banter. Now, they seem to be aware of everything, from old jobs to current projects.

            “At least you’re not at that catering gig anymore,” David says.

            “Fuck, that was the worst. At a Christmas shindig, one of the guests took a shit right in the middle of the bathroom floor. Like, not even behind a stall. Right in the middle. And the tickets were like $700 a pop! Who even pays that much for a ticket and then spends it on taking shits on public floors?” I whine.

            “Rich people. They be like that,” Ricky says. “Dealing with other people’s shit is shit. Back when I was an officer I’d always get Wag Bag Duty. We’d have to stir the shit whilst it burnt…man, those were the dark days.”

            “Oh my God. You never told me about that!” I say, turning to Isadoro.

            “I didn’t have to do it much. The lippy ones who pissed the commanding officers off got that job,” he shrugs. Everybody looks at Ricky.

            “Hey, I am a _delight_ ,” he says, pressing his lips loudly against the tips of his bunch-up fingers in a chef’s kiss. “All the Fobbits love me.”

            “Didn’t you almost get kicked out of the schoolhouse?” Callie deadpans, referring to the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Centre and School, the primary training grounds for the Special Forces.

            “That’s hearsay!” Ricky exclaims. Everybody looks at him. “Okay, okay, there might have been a _tiny_ —miniscule, really—incident with a pipe bursting in my vicinity.”

            “Bursting or exploding?” David asks, clearly already having teased Ricky about this before.

            “It might have allegedly exploded a little tiny bit,” Ricky admits. The group laughs, shaking their heads.

            “What about the time the Quartermaster almost killed you when you kept asking for non-regimented goods?” Doc teases.

            “Hey, I wore him down in the end! He got me that bottle of cheese-wiz, so help me God.”

            “That’s what you were asking for?” I ask incredulously.

            “I needed the can for a…project,” he says.

            The food arrives in big plates for sharing. We dig in, and Muhafiz sighs as he chews on fresh shrimp.

            “Man, remember surf and turf days when we were officers? That shrimp came in _trash bags_. And the meat, damn, you had to saw through it. It was the best thing that could possibly happen to us back then.”

            “What miserable bastards we were,” Callie says.

            “ _Were_? Don’t you remember when we ate at Bongo Drum’s—that’s what we called the leader of one of the Sunni families cause of his, you know,” he says the last bit to me, drawing a half circle against his stomach with his hands and then patting it like a drum.

            “Wow. The level of Special Forces diplomatic tactic is blowing me away,” I say sarcastically.

            “Hey, there are like seven hundred Yazid’s in one village. You try keeping them straight.”

            “How about Yazid One, Yazid Two…” 

            “Oh yeah, those are memorable,” Ricky snarks. “Anyway, the point is that his food was so good I went straight to nirvana. Oh, man…they do something to the rice, man. I barely listened to a word he said.”

            “Spoken like a true Green Beret. Elite of the elite, right?” I tease.

            “Fuck the Navy! Viva los Green Beret!” Ricky shouts. The whole table cheers, raising their glasses and drinking. I laugh, shaking my head, but toast to them.

The conversation weaves in and out of shop-talk. It’s obvious Isadoro is interested, so they talk about some of the non-classified going-ons. Callie complains about how the soldiers in a recent camp they visited didn’t even know the western hand-sign for ‘stop’ is the Iraqi equivalent to ‘welcome’, and were all outraged when none of the locals stopped their cars when they were signed with an outstretched palm facing them.

            “You’d think the few soldiers that are left would know that,” she grouses.

            A few times Isadoro will lean into her and ask her quiet questions, obviously about more sensitive missions. Despite their talk about letting go, it’s easier said than done.

            It’s clear I’m completely out of the loop. But Isadoro, who had once been right in the middle, is now in the periphery, and that transition comes with loss.

            The conversation turns to lighter subjects and Isadoro gets up from the table, heading to the toilet. The moment he’s out of earshot, all eyes are on me. I freeze with my drink half-way to my mouth.

            “How is he doing, really?” Doc asks me, watching me with his animal eyes. I put my drink down, pressing my lips. I don’t want to betray Isadoro’s trust, but if there is one group of people to tell…

            I shake my head slightly. “Not great,” I admit. They all look at each other.

            “Not great like I can’t get a job not great, or not great as in-” Ricky makes a choking sound, letting his head flop to the side as if snapped by a noose.

            “Jesus, Ricky!” David says as everybody groans.

            “Hey! Everybody was thinking it.”

            “Literally none of us were thinking that. That’s not where Isadoro would go, especially not when he’s got Iván,” Callie says. I immediately feel uncomfortable at the insinuation.

            “I don’t think it works like that. I don’t think one person can just save another like that, not if they don’t want it.”

            “But Isadoro does want it. And a person can keep someone afloat long enough that they can find the strength to swim to shore. And—I’m sorry to put the responsibility on you, but that’s what you are to him. He don’t gotta say as much for us to know. You gotta…you gotta take care of him, yeah?” she says.

            “Yes,” I agree immediately. “And…yeah, things have been rough but…I don’t think you have to worry. The fact he’s here now…yeah. It’s…it’s good,” I say. They all relax.

            “Call us, if you need someone to back you up. Some things may have to come from us,” Muhafiz says. I nod.

            “Thank you,” I say, truly meaning it. By the time Isadoro gets back, we’ve switched the subject and I’m feeling tired but light.

            I hadn’t really realized fully until I said it out loud, but the fact he _is_ here now is a promise to the future. 

            The hanging lights around the patio turn on as the sun sets across the water. It’s all red and orange until its black. The lamps flutter with bugs, shadow-puppets moving against the glowing yellow. When the restaurant closes, dessert scraped from our plates and coffee dredges at the bottom of our cups, we continue the night, taking a walk around the pier. We sit by the water in the warm air, surrounded by the clean, salty smell of the sea, the sound of its rhythm.

            I watch them all interact, and my soul aches for Isadoro. In empathy, because his return home meant a sudden absence of his support system. His family. But I feel relief too, knowing these were the people who took care of him while he was away. It’s like I’ve finally peeked inside that world in a way no amount of watching the news could give me.

Day to day, this is what really mattered. The iron skeleton of his deployment. The people he fought and rested and feared and laughed with.

            I lean my head against his shoulder and he wraps his arm around me. I close my eyes and just listen to them talk for a while, the sound like the lull of the sea.

            The sun is already rising when we part. The goodbyes are short and efficient out of emotional necessity. I get tight hugs, and my embrace is just as thankful in return.

            “We’ll see each other soon,” Callie says.

            “Inshallah,” Isadoro replies with a smile.

            In the light of the new dawn, we walk back. The town around us is already waking up, fishermen and bakers ready for the day.

            “I’m glad you have them,” I tell him softly as we walk down the docks. “Because you still have them. You know that, right?” I say. He slings an arm around my shoulder, pulling me close. He stays quiet, but it’s not an isolating silence, its walls soft and permeable.

            I’m exhausted when I finally crawl into bed, but it’s a satisfied feeling, well-earned. Isadoro climbs in after me. I shift towards him instantly. Despite my tiredness, I want to feel him close.

            I sprawl over him, straddling one of his thighs as we kiss lazily. It’s all tongue and lips as I run my fingers against his scalp with the back of my fingernails. Isadoro’s hands press against my back, travelling down until they’re cupping my ass, one cheek in each palm. He squeezes, shifting me up slightly, and I moan against his mouth as my crotch rubs against his hip. I press my thigh against his hard cock and start rocking slowly, rubbing off on him like we’re kids again and too impatient for prep.

            “Isa,” I murmur. He squeezes my ass again and I stutter against his cheek.

            “Fuck, you feel good,” he mutters. Our movements are the slow erosion of waves. We move with the boat, a sway of bodies, feeling the pleasure rise in increments. Hard and fast can be good, but so can this, the feeling of wanting more and not having enough, the delicious act of denying yourself speed or more friction, the desperation it breeds.

            We breathe against each other, its own kind of kiss.

            Orgasm hits Isadoro first. I watch him through the haze of my pleasure as he arches against me, head thrown back, the tendons of his neck straining. Feel him grip my ass hard, push against my own dick. Feel him come against me the moment before I tip over into the same high, that same deep.

            We lay, sticky and sated in the aftermath. We’ve slid the door mostly down, and the slat of sunlight peeking through makes Isadoro glow. A fan whirs in the space, pushing air around. Everything is thick with heat and the calling of sleep.

            “Isa,” I say as I fall into the dark, just to drag him with me into rest.

 

**********

 

            Sometimes, in that swaying dark, Isadoro will open up and talk, unprompted. The words fall like overripe fruit from a tree, cracking on the ground and exposing the pulp of fear and doubt within.

            He shares his guilt over things left undone. The fight for Helmand in Afghanistan. The misery in Syria. The crumbling foundations of our own home. He talks about how there were successes, but at times it felt like they were just there to fix a machine they broke.

            There is nowhere his guilt won’t stretch to. It is a blind, enraged minotaur in a maze of his own making.

            He tells me about the jarring difference between how his team saw him, and how the locals did. How it felt to go from an environment of complete comradery to one of intense hostility. In a way, civilian life is similar, only reversed. Isadoro tells me about how every time he rolls out of the wire, no matter what land he is in, he feels like a transplant from another world. It is only at home that he’s safe from that feeling.

            “I get that,” I tell him, stroking his face. “But you’re a soldier. Isn’t rolling out of the wire what you do? Rain or shine or fear or doubt?”

            He doesn’t respond, but his hands are tight against my back.


	9. Chapter 9

It’s our last stop before turning back. The return trip will be straight-sailing, with pit stops for rest and fuel.

            On our first of two days there, we decide to just go to the beach. We buy some fresh towels and a large, lime-green parasol and head to the sand, walking along the shore until the crush of people diminishes and we find an open spot. We lay our stuff on the scorching sand while I dig a small hole, spearing the parasol in as Isadoro finds some rocks to keep it steady. By the time it’s in place, we’re both sweating and head straight into the water.

            It’s like old times. We swim into the deep until our feet have to tread water, the floor far below. We dive through the warm surface and into the cooler tides at the bottom, playing at who can surface the largest handfuls of sand until we’re spluttering as we throw them at each other.

            We swim a little inland, stopping just before where the waves break. We bob with their swell and dips. There’s a strong breeze and the water rises impressively. We make a competition out of catching the waves without bodies, letting the momentum of the rise take us into the foamy crash and further.

            “I win!” I crow as we both stand up at the tail of a wave, a few feet closer to the shore than Isadoro.

            “It’s cause you’re so skinny,” he protests.

            “ _It’s cause you’re so skinny_ ,” I mimic in a high voice. “You’re such a sore loser. I’m just better than you. What, did they not teach this in training?” I tease.

            “Brat,” he says, shoving me into the next wave.

            “Hey!” I splutter, lunging and yanking at his leg until he falls. I scream in delight as he bursts out of the water and toward me, swimming away from him and into deeper, calmer waters.

            When we exhaust ourselves like children in the waves, we walk out into the heat again. We spread our towels in the sun and lay there, the water evaporating from our skin and leaving salt behind. When the sun’s itch becomes too much we move under the parasol and nap in the breeze.

            I blink awake as I hear Isadoro get up next to me. I watch him through slit eyes as he goes into the water and then back again to sit right at the wave’s edge. I follow his lead, taking a dip before joining him.

            “Let’s build something,” I suggest. He smiles at me.

            We don’t have any tools, but it doesn’t stop us. We carry wet sand away from the water’s reach and I get to constructing a castle as he builds a protective moat around it for when the ride rises. We used to do this all the time in summer when we were children.

            “Remember the time we started a sand war with those kids we didn’t even know?” I laugh.

            “Oh my God. They looked so fucking surprised when you lobbed that first ball at them. Everybody was always on about what a troublemaker I was, but you were just as bad.”

            “We were a couple of little shits,” I agree. Isadoro was always more of a thrill-seeker, but I was responsible for a fair share of misadventures. “Or, oh my God…remember that restaurant we used to terrorize?”

            “Fuck! I had almost forgotten about that.”

            “We were, like, so convinced that the owner had tried to run me over. I probably just stepped out onto the road like an idiot,” I say. The owner of a local Indian restaurant had, in our overdramatic minds, tried to kill me, and we’d spent the summer sticking ‘closed’ signs on his restaurant’s doors.

            “Didn’t you draw a middle finger on some of the posters?” Isadoro says incredulously as if it’s not our own past.

            “Oh, my God.”

            “Not to mention the time we made those water balloons filled with pee. We literally peed into a bucket for that one. We put more effort into that than most of our science projects,” Isadoro says, laughing loudly.

            “Jesus, I think I’d repressed that one. We were so awful, we really were. Oh, but remember when you found a wounded bird? We were so sad when it died…”

            “Oh, yeah. It had a good funeral though. I like that we buried it with one of your little clay animals, so it wasn’t alone.”

            “Yeah. Okay, we weren’t that bad.”

            “Yeah, only to people,” Isadoro chuckles.

            “Eh, people kinda suck anyway.”

            When we deem the castle as good as it's going to get, we wash up, dry off, and walk to a nearby food truck for lunch. We don’t order much, the heat robbing us of our appetite, but the squid we buy is so fresh and good that we go for seconds. We compliment the two women manning the truck and they smile their thanks.

            “We catch some of the squids ourselves, actually. They come out at night, near land where they’re attracted to light. You don’t even need to put anything on the lure, a squid jig is enough,” one of them explains. Isadoro and I look at each other, communicating without words.

Inspired by the conversation about our past mischief, we decide on the spot to go out and fish squid that night. We finish our food as we plan.

We spend the rest of the day lounging and playing on the beach. When we’ve had enough of the sun, we pack up and head back to the boat. After cold showers and clean clothes, we go buy the necessary supplies. We already have the line, rods, and coolers, so all we need are the squid jigs and some ice to keep the squid fresh. After we store everything away we go back into town for dinner. We meander around to pass the time, fizzing with anticipation. 

When it’s late enough, we head out. We’ve already decided on the perfect spot. We steer the boat towards the lighthouse and then anchor far enough away from the other boats to not disturb them.

            “We probably need a permit for this,” Isadoro says.

            “We’re only gonna catch a couple, come on.”

            We sit on the swaying boat for hours, under the expanse of stars. The town is small enough not to cause too much light pollution, and they are bright pinholes of light in the black. The moon is almost full, dripping silver into the waves.

            It’s a perfect night to catch squid.

            The squid don’t agree. 

            “I thought this would be easier,” I say, having gone from excited to calm to impatient.

            “Stop playing with the line, then. They said to keep it still.”

            “I read on Google that you have to move it up and down!”

            “Are you seriously going to trust Google more than the locals who literally caught the squid we ate today?”

            “All hail Google, for Google knows all,” I chant in a low, monotone voice. Isadoro laughs, shaking his head.

            “Kids these days.”

            “Okay, Grandpa-Daddy, tone it down there. I don’t want you to slip and break your glass hip.”

            “You’re-”

            “Oh shit!” I cut him off as I feel a pull of my line.

            “Did one bite?”

            “I think so!”

            “Reel it in!”

            Isadoro comes over to stand next to me as I reel the line in. It takes longer than I expect but suddenly, a squid slips out of the water.

            “Oh shit!” I shout. I’d half expected it to be a boot or something.

            “Wait, don’t-” Isadoro starts, but it’s too late. I’ve already grabbed the squid, forgetting to leave it hanging on the line for a few seconds. The moment my hand clasps around it, it flops towards me and inks me in the chest.

            I scream, stumbling backward and falling against one of the benches.

            “It’s going to kill me!” I shout. I can see the creature’s evil, gelatinous eyes looking at me.

            “Hold still!” Isadoro says, grabbing the thing from me. I let go of it gladly, stunned by the sudden attack. Isadoro holds it away from himself, unhooking it and dropping it quickly into the bucket.

            “Are you okay?” Isadoro says, but his concern is undercut by the way he doubles over with laughter.

            “I’ve just been shot by a squid and you’re over there laughing your ass off!” I complain. “There’s ink everywhere!”

            “Oh my God,” he says between laughs. “The way you screamed…I’ve seen soldiers take bullets with less fuss.”

            “That thing had the devil in its eyes! You didn’t see it! That thing is evil!” I defend. Isadoro collapses on the opposite bench, arm over his stomach as he continues laughing. I lift my shirt towards my nose and then rear away. “It smells!” I howl mournfully. This just makes Isadoro laugh harder.

            Seeing I’m not getting anything from Sergeant Empathy dying of laughter in the corner, I strip my t-shirt off carefully and then wipe myself with a towel. The ink has stained my skin, however, as well as some of the white plastic on the boat.

            “Look at this! He’s left the mark of Sauron on me!” I complain. Isadoro hides his face in his hands, shoulders shaking. “You are the worst,” I tell him as I laugh too, putting a clean shirt on.

            When he’s finally calmed down, he moves carefully toward the squid, peering into the bucket.

            “It’s still moving,” he says.

            “He’s probably got nine lives, like an evil cat.”

            “Cats aren’t evil.”

            “I didn’t say cats were evil, I said he was like a cat that happened to be evil. Please check yourself before you wreck yourself.”

Isadoro starts giggling—no other word can describe the noise—before he sobers again as he looks at the squid. Slowly, he turns to look at me, eyes wide. I know that look.

            “No. We are not throwing that thing back in the ocean!” I say. Isadoro just looks at me. “Are you fucking serious? We sit here for hours only to catch the asshole of the ocean and you want to put it back?” I say. Isadoro looks into the bucket and then back at me. “Isa, for real. It’s already wounded. We’ll take this one to the food truck and won’t catch anymore, okay?” I say. Isadoro sighs.

            “Okay.”

            “You big softy,” I say, rolling my eyes but smiling. He looks at me and then starts laughing again. “Oh, my God!” I say, but this time I’m laughing with him.

            We crumple onto a bench, stomachs aching and breath short. I lean against him for a moment and everything feels so wide and open around us.

            We kill the squid, wrap it, and pack it in the cooler with ice. When we get back to the docks we clean the boat and then take another shower. The sky is shivering with the suggestion of dawn by the time we’re in bed.

            “You still smell like squid ink,” Isadoro whispers in my hair.

            “No, I don’t!”

“Hmm…yeah, right here I think,” he says, pressing his lips to my clavicle. “And here,” he says, moving his lips down, biting at a nipple. I laugh, squirming.

He peppers my chest with kisses and bites, playful like he’s chasing a scent. I smile and mock-struggle underneath him until his mouth lowers, tongue joining his lips and teeth. I still, slightly out of breath. He hums against my skin and I shudder, wrapping my legs loosely around him so he can continue moving down. My cock is hardening from the sudden intent in his movement, but he bypasses it, licking at one of my balls before sucking it into his mouth.

I let out a gasp, my hands holding his shoulders as I close my eyes and focus on the sensation. He rubs the pads of his fingers against my hole, just enough to make me shudder at the suggestion of something more. He presses my taint with his thumb, massaging me there, and I rock in his hands, in his mouth. All these sensations are an insinuation of a deeper pleasure, but it doesn’t stop my dick from fully hardening against my stomach.

            “Isa,” I plead. He hums back, a buzz of sensation, before moving his mouth to my dick. He licks a line there, up, down, up again, teasing me in increments before sucking the head into his mouth.

            “Yeah, fuck, yes,” I say, already pent up.

            He works me over slow and deep. It’s a relentless, steady pace. His hands stroke my thighs as my knees lift to bracket his head, then move up to my hips, holding them down. He looks so good there between my legs. He lifts his eyes to meet mine and I shudder all over at the look. It goes straight through my skin and hooks in deep, where he’s already always been.

He moves one of his hands down and pushes the flat of two knuckles against my taint, pressing there again as he rolls his fingers. At the dig of each knuckle, I writhe. The pit of my stomach, the hollow in the bones of my hips, it all melts into a delicious stream of light.

            The orgasm hits me from the inside out. His mouth is ruthless around my dick, sucking me down, and I arch into him, against him. A low groan rips from me to join the waves.

            I’m panting when the last pulse of pleasure has gone through me. I slump against the bed and Isadoro collapses with me for a few seconds, pressing his face against my stomach. I wrap my arms around his shoulders, running a hand against the bristle of his hair.

            He moves up my body to kiss me. I part my lips for him and reach down to grasp his cock in a fist. I love feeling the air of his gasp in my mouth. Love having him so close, here, with me.

            I feel all of Isadoro’s pleasure. Feel his shivers, his moans, the way his kiss turns sloppy the closer he gets to orgasm. Feel his eyelashes, the grip of his hands, the want and pull of his muscles. His hot, animal body strains over me, thinking only of me. Feeling only me, and itself, and us together.

            He comes in hot stripes against my stomach, my name pressed against my own lips. I lift my hips, pressing us together, and he slides against me, wet and still coming until he’s spent.

            We’re breathless and sticky and pressed together. I move my lips to his ear.

            “Guess squid ink really does it for you, huh?” I murmur. He laughs against me and that’s good, too.

 

******

 

            On our last day before we start heading back home, we go to the food truck, bearing gifts. The two women cheer when we show them the squid we caught, laughing as I tell them an only slightly exaggerated version of my successful hunt. They accept the squid from us and insist on giving us a free lunch in return.

            We spend the day walking. We avoid the tourist-laden areas and enjoy the sea air that brushes the whole town clean. We get ice cream that melts almost as soon as we buy it, go into a museum about marine life, find a little park where kids are running around. We grab dinner and I order squid again as vengeance. Isadoro laughs at me.

            At night, we go to the town square, where a local band is playing in the open. We sit and watch on some stone steps until, to my surprise, Isadoro drags me to dance. I don’t even fake a protest. The noise is all around us, the music and the people, but it’s just us in the moment. We press and sway close together. I rest my head on his shoulder and close my eyes.

 

**********

 

            The return home is filled with long days at sea. There’s a sense of calm to cutting through water and air despite the noise and the wind. It’s all the openness around us, perhaps, or the lack of people. The space to think or just be for a while, like our lives are frozen somewhere else. But we both feel life thawing as we get closer to it. There’s a building sense of anticipation as we unravel knots in the distance travelled, but it’s not yet enough to shatter the peace offered by the sea.

            Isadoro is mostly quiet, but I don’t feel lost to him. His silence feels pensive instead of isolating, and I leave him to it. I have my own sea creatures crowding my head, and as hard as I try to throw them into the ocean, they always come back. I’m followed by the image of his room, the heavy darkness of it, its stagnant air and smell. How being in that room feels, like gravity is pulling you down from the feet of your soul until you want to get on your knees and plead. How small Isadoro looks in that room, like his edges are dissolving and he’s about to disappear.

            Desperately, desperately, I do not want to go back to that room. But it’s not my choice if we do, and I know if Isadoro goes back in again, I will follow, but not all of me. And not forever.

            These thoughts are mostly swept away by the salt air, but they drip with squid ink, staining my skin.

            By some unspoken agreement, we both know the sexual aspect of our relationship will end when we get back. The dreamlike quality of this trip has only encouraged an acceptance of truth, and we can both see this is a strange, dangerous game we’re playing.

It only makes the time we have left more intense.

            At night, we become almost frantic. We dig into each other’s skin with fingers and teeth. Our hold leaves marks behind, squid ink over squid ink. Even when we drift to sleep, we cling to each other like buoys in the dark.

We spend the last night in the docks where it all started. Each harbour has a song, and this one is familiar, like it’s tucked away in memories of childhood. We buy some beer and stuff the cooler with it, sitting in the cockpit on opposite benches. We’ve got chips and salsa propped on upside-down buckets in the middle. I scoop some salsa up generously, stuffing the chip into my mouth.

            “What food did you miss most when you were over there?” I ask.

            “Oh man,” Isadoro says. “We were constantly talking about food. It’s like we wanted to torture ourselves. Cheeseburgers were a big thing. They’re so easy to imagine, you know, all dripping with grease…”

            “Gross.”

            “So good. And it was about what it meant I guess, the all-American cheeseburger. If we had that in our hands, we were definitely home.”

            “Yeah, we can do grease like no other alright.”

            “And, I mean, comfort food was a big thing, but that was different for all of us. I mean, sometimes I would just miss the oranges from the farm. Man, when you pick one of those big sour ones in winter…”

            “Literally nothing is better.”

            “Nothing. Or, oh fuck, you’re mom’s carbonara. Carbonara is one of those dishes everybody makes different enough that you really notice. Remember that time she wanted to experiment and put capers in it?”

            “Literally thought you would cry.”

            “I did a little,” he says, and I laugh, shaking my head. “You know what I really missed? Just getting on my bike and going for a ride. Like, we used to do that all the time as kids, we didn’t even think about it. To town, to the beach, ‘round _La Portera_ …it was the thoughtlessness of it I missed. That really simple freedom.”

            “Maybe you should get a bike when you get home. That way when you start feeling a little…antsy, you can hop on and clear your mind.”

            “Yeah, that’s not a bad idea actually. Maybe I can get a real bike. Like, a motorbike.”

            “Yeah, come back home and crack your head open, why don’t you.”

            “I’ll be careful! Anyways, I’d like to see the comparative stats between motorcycle and bicycle accidents in big cities.”

            “Google it.”

            “Eh,” Isadoro says dismissively. I roll my eyes, smiling.

            “This is the problem with you not having a phone in your hands at all times. You’ve lost crucial millennial skills.”

            “No, that’s the problem with people these days. It was better when-”

            “URGH! Stop! Urgh, I can’t believe you’re a hipster this is so embarrassing.”

            “I am not a-”

            “La, la, la, la, la-”

            “I am-”

            “La, la, la, la-”

            “I AM A VETERAN-”

            “LA, LA, LA, LA-”

            “OF THE GREEN BERETS!”

            “I CAN’T HEAR YOU MY PHONE HAS BURST MY EARDRUM I HAVE PHONE CANCER I—WHERE ARE YOU? I CAN’T SEE YOU I’M BLIND!”

            “You are the most ridiculous person. You are a verruca.”

            “A verruca!” I gasp, honestly offended. Isadoro laughs loudly. “I’m—how dare you, sir? You puss-filled cyst! Your name is now Mister Puss-Filled Cyst, congratulations.”

            “Is ‘Mister’ part of my name?”

            “Yes, Mister is your first name and Puss-Filled Cyst is your last name.”

            “What’s my middle name?”

            “Jambalaya,” I say without pausing and we both dissolve into laughter.

            “How many beers have we had?”

            “Not nearly enough to explain this.”

            We drift on the surface of easy conversation. When we’ve had enough beers and the salsa is long gone, we pack everything away and go wash up. Isadoro catches me as we leave the locker room and kisses me like he can’t wait until we reach the boat.

            When we get to it, he helps me hop onto the deck, keeping his hands on me. They’re warm presses against the skin of my stomach and back, the brush of fingers against the nape of my neck. When we make it inside, he wraps his arms around me and kisses me in a way that makes me lose myself completely.

            The moon is big and heavy in the sky. We strip in its light like we’re preparing for a ritual to the sea gods. We climb onto the bed in a mess of arms and legs and laugh as we knock into each other.

            There’s a moment, tucked between laughing and gasping, when I want to say something. A set of light, glowing words. I want to press them into his mouth, his eyes, every inch of his skin. I want to illuminate him with them. But then he kisses me again, and the moment passes in silence.

            He kisses my jawline, my neck, down the centre of my chest. It’s one of his favourite things to do. Like he’s marked a path he enjoys walking. He always pauses on my nipples to feel me squirm, before lowering again.

            Today, he stops at my stomach. I watch him drip his fingers in lube and then he settles against me again. He strokes my hole with his wet index finger before sliding it in. I shift my hips and immediately ask for more. We’ve been doing this every night, so the prep is barely necessary. I know he enjoys it however, so I let him indulge.

            He sets a pace that is as deep and rhythmic as ever. He watches his fingers for a while, appearing and disappearing into me, before pressing his face against my stomach, wrapping his other arm around my hips. I rest what I can of my legs on him so we’re cocooned in each other.  

            Two turns to three, and he fucks me with his fingers, just like that. I can feel his breaths on the sensitive skin of my stomach, his arm holding me, pinning me down, the stretch of his fingers. I move my hips, pressing down on them, shifting against him. It’s like he’s everywhere, but I still want more.

            “Isa, fuck me. Come on,” I say. Isadoro looks up, cheek still pressed against my stomach. He slows his fingers down but presses them more deliberately against my prostate. I moan, arching my back.

            “Bastard, come up here and fuck me,” I say. I feel his laugh, even if the rush of my blood doesn’t let me hear it.

            Finally, he does. He sits up, and I can’t help but jerk him off a few times before I’m being pushed down again. I turn around, getting on my knees as I press my face to the sheets. Isadoro grabs my hips, just stroking my skin for a moment before he slides in.

            I love the thick stretch of it, the sudden fullness, the way he leans forwards and plasters all his body against me. He fucks me deep, that familiar volcanic water bubbling inside me. I feel his teeth scraping against my shoulder, my neck, and turn my face towards him, but I’m so pressed against the bed that we can barely kiss.

Isadoro pulls out, turning me around, and then is back inside me, around me, both his arms a vice around my body. I lift my knees up high and wide towards my shoulders so the angle is as deep as it can go, and he splits me open even as he holds me together. He wraps around me completely and for a moment, in this safety, I feel loss.

            “Iván,” he groans into my ear, and I’m close too. He reaches between us to jerk me off with quick strokes and it all builds suddenly. Until it’s too much. We tip over the edge together, our names shipwrecked on the surf.

            For a while, we don’t part. We stay like molluscs clinging to rocks until my legs start cramping and I have to stretch. He helps me unbend my achy knees and cleans me up before we press close again. I can feel his come dripping from my hole and clench for a moment, wanting to keep him in.

            There’s nothing much to say. This is the last night. This is the last night we’ll ever be together like that.

            I can barely think it.

            For once, Isadoro falls asleep first. My head rests on his chest, and I feel his muscles relax fully, his breath becoming long and even.

            His body is so warm beside mine that I can feel the skin before I touch it. My fingers hover over his shoulder, down to the angle of his bent elbow as he holds me, running a path right over the moonlit shadow of him. My fingers feel his warmth, touching but not touching him. 


	10. Chapter 10

I’d been afraid everything would collapse the moment we got back home.

            It doesn’t, but it doesn’t all just fix itself, either.

            The moment we’re back, life sweeps me away. Just a few days after we arrive, so do my grades. I sit in front of the computer for a while, just staring at the screen. Isadoro sits next to me, completely calm in his confidence. When I click the link, the numbers and letters are all a mess until they untangle themselves before me.

            “I did it,” I say. It’s all there. All my courses, my projects, my exams. All the programs I’ve learnt the ins and outs of, the digital languages I’ve perfected. All the paint and the clay and the spirit I’ve dripped onto canvas and moulded into shape. Life is fucked up enough that it all wouldn’t have mattered if these rows of letters and numbers didn’t glow like they do now.

            “I did it!” I repeat like I’m waking up from a dream. I look at Isadoro, smiling, and he laughs at my surprise.

            “Yeah, you did,” he says, and accepts my strangle-hold hug as I lunge at him.

            I liaise with work, and they’re ecstatic. We agree I’ll do a few days to get re-acclimated with ongoing clients and look at some possible projects starting up, and then start officially at the beginning of September.

            This leaves me enough time to stress over the summer show at the end of August. There are quite a few pictures to pick from, having done so many with Isadoro, and I talk to my advisor about options and composition. I have a few clay structures as well, and he tells me he can get me space for them in the show. I feel like I could vibrate out of my skin with anxiety and excitement.

            At home, things move more slowly. Isadoro reverts back to barely leaving the house, but he comes out of his room, which is more than I could have hoped for. He takes over a lot of the cooking and the house chores, guilty at his negligence of them before the trip. I don’t really care. I’ll thank whatever gets him out of the room.

            Despite this, some days are still worse than others. Some days, the darkness in his room becomes too thick, and he can’t escape it. I’ve learnt to be a little less direct in my approach, but no less present. I’ll open the windows, parting the curtains just slightly so they flutter in the breeze. I’ll lay with him sometimes and talk about the exhibition, about the job, asking his opinion to engage him. It works, sometimes. He seems less frustrated than before, and I realize how scared I’d been. Scared for him, but the fear took his shape, talked to me with his face, until I started feeling a little scared around him, too. Scared of what his own behaviour might mean for him. Scared of how much it hurt to see him suffer, and how helpless I was to stop it.

            We stay up late much of the time, sitting on the couch with just a sliver of space between us, but going to bed is still strange and lonely. After so many days of going to sleep to the sound of waves, the silence is heavy. It drags with it the suggestion of a visceral fear that reminds me of childhood. Of being a kid and hating to fall asleep after my parents had gone to bed, when the house felt unnatural and dead. Now, it feels like my nights are haunted, and these ghosts are just the night-time anxiety of children, manifested.

            I’ll lay in the dark and feel the exact shape of his absence in my bed. The hollow creature of it is as transparent and still as the silence of the oceanless night.

            I’ll close my eyes and miss him.

 

**********

 

            One day, I come back from talking to my advisor and Isadoro isn’t home. I don’t notice at first, thinking it’s just a bad day and he’s in his room, but when I peek inside I’m startled to see his room empty. I look around, stilling when I see the note on the coffee table.

_Out for a bit,_

_Be back later_

            I roll my eyes at Isadoro for giving me the least possible information, and through an outdated medium. I take out my phone and send him a text.

_This is your phone speaking. Please use me. I can help you communicate with people. Will wonders never cease?_

            He doesn’t reply, but I didn’t expect him to.

            He comes back a few hours later. As soon as I see his face, haggard looking and exhausted, my stomach drops.

            “Isa? Are you…is everything okay?” I ask, that old tentativeness back.

            “Yeah,” he says, and moves straight towards his room. I watch him, feeling like I’m sinking, as if he’s dragging me with him, when he stops at the threshold. He just stands there, shoulders and back stiff with tension, before some of it seeps out of him with a sigh.

            He turns back to face me, pauses again, and then walks towards the couch. I just follow him with my eyes as he sits next to me. He slumps onto the couch so that his head rests on the edge of the sofa’s back. He closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and just sits there for a while.

            For once, I don’t push.

            “I went to the V.A.,” he says suddenly. I almost jump, glad of his closed eyes so he doesn’t see my gobsmacked expression.

            “How did it go?” I ask eventually.

            “It went,” he says, and I can tell that’s the whole sentence.

            “Isa…” I say softly, and brush one of my hands against his. His eyes flutter open slightly, and he looks at me. I smile. “I’m glad you went,” I say simply. His lips twitch into a fraction of a smile. “What did you do?”

            There’s a long moment of silence, a little furrow between his brows, but I let it be.

            “I met up with that guy you went to see. Mansur.” He opens an eye, peeking at me. “I felt like he already knew a bit about me,” he says, but it’s not accusatory.

            “Yeah. I needed the help,” I admit. He closes his eyes again.

            “Yeah…”

            “Did you tell him anything?”

            “Yeah. I’d thought it’d be harder with him already knowing some stuff, and not knowing how much stuff he knew, but he told me everything you’d told him about me and it kind of helped. I could just confirm or deny and then just…elaborate. I don’t think I would have told him so much if I’d had to say it all from scratch myself, you know? Not that I told him everything, obviously, but it was…”

            “A start.”

            “Yeah. A start.”

            “Did you like him? I’ve read that the therapeutic relationship is the most important part-”

            “Oh my God,” he laughs. “I’m going to disable Google off your phone,” he says. I mock-gasp.

            “How dare you threaten Google, my one true God?”

            “Those comments are gonna bite you in the ass when we live in a world where we can sell Google space in our heads for ads and they start selling thought data to third-party members.”

            “Okay, Black Mirror, calm yourself down…How much is Google paying for brain space exactly? Because there’s this new drawing tablet I want and…”

            Isadoro laughs, shaking his head. “I’m not letting you sell brain space to Google.”

            “Oh, you’re not _letting_ me? You’re not _letting_ me sell brain space to Google? Team Daddy has prohibited all selling of thought space. Well, you’re not the boss of me, Mr. Puss-Filled Cyst, so stuff that into your goofy-looking beret.” 

            “Hey! We all know those berets look ridiculous, but we’re not supposed to say anything!” Isadoro admonishes.

            “Oh my God…they are so bad,” I laugh.

            “Shush! Okay, I don’t insult Google, you don’t insult the berets. Deal?”

            “Deal. You’re going to lose.”

            “It isn’t a competition, it’s a deal. No one is supposed to lose.”

            “You’re still gonna lose, and I’m suing you upon breach of contract.”

            Isadoro slumps back again, laughing this time. His hand is wrapped around mine.

            “So…it went okay?” I ask. Isadoro looks at me.

            “Yeah. I don’t know about the…group thing.”

            “Maybe that can be a goal to move towards,” I say. Isadoro’s lips quirk up.

            “That’s what Mansur said.”

            “Well, there you go. Group stuff is usually a lot worse in your head anyway. Once you connect with those people, it’ll mean more than you were ever scared of it,” I say.

            “That barely made sense, but I got your point,” he replies.

            “ _Puss-filled cyst_ ,” I mouth at him. He snorts. “So, you’re going again?” I ask. Isadoro nods.

            “Yeah,” he says. We leave it at that.

            It’s unclear what impact going to the V.A. has. It seems to exhaust him so much that he goes out less, and often spends the afternoon in his room after a session. However, he always goes to the sessions, and I start preparing comfort dinners those days to lure him out. It almost always works. We’ll eat together, and I won’t ask him any questions. We’ll just talk or watch a movie.

            Somehow, although I can’t pinpoint exactly what, I feel things are getting better.

 

**********

 

            “Nuh-uh. No way. Nope,” Iva is saying, sticking a finger out at Ezra from where her hand is holding a drink.

            “Look, I’m not saying it’s by the size of their hands or whatever, but you can definitely tell if a guy has a big dick from their _aura_.”

            “No! I know what you’re saying but you. Are. Wrong.”

            “I feel there’s a story behind this.”

            “There’s definitely a story behind this,” Joaquin says. The four of us stand in the courtyard of Iva’s favourite club. Latino music pumps through the open door, but it's far away enough to be able to hold a conversation in the open air.

            “There is definitely a story behind this and rest assured I am right and you are wrong,” Iva tells Ezra.

            “Receipts please,” he says, holding the palm of his hand up to the sky.

            “Okay, so,” Iva starts, and I’m already smiling at her storytelling energy. “I met this guy the other week, right? He was like, _blanquito_ to the max. Cute, guy-next-door sort of floppy-haired look, you know? Anyway, so we get to talking and he seems, like, not _shy_ exactly but like he doesn’t go out often, you know? Like, he was rusty. And I’m curious, you know, so I’m asking him questions and eventually he tells me about how he just split up with this long-term girlfriend, like, _real_ long term. And he’s not shitting on his girlfriend or anything, he’s like explaining how they kept trying even though it obviously wasn’t working and blah, blah, blah, relationship-people stuff.”

            “Real sensitive,” I snort.

            “I’m not dissing! I’m just saying that people who are scared of being alone can get caught up in the ‘ _but…’_ part of ending a relationship and this one obviously dragged on for _way_ too long. It was obvious he needed to change the script for a while, clear the air. So, I was like, you need to have fun, dude. And, lucky for you, I am _a lot_ of fun,” she says, smirking at us. We laugh.

            “So, we agree to meet up later that week ‘cause I could tell he was way too green for just a party hook-up, but I made it _blindingly_ clear that this was a Netflix and Chill situation. We text-flirt, it’s all good, I go over to his place and he’s cooked me a Three. Course. Meal. Like, from _scratch._ Himself!” she says, gesticulating wildly.

            “Oh my God,” Ezra says, laughing. Out of all of us, Iva and Ezra probably know the ‘Netflix and Chill’ etiquette the best, and a three-course meal is obviously a major misstep.

            “What did he make you?” I ask.

            “Oh my God. So, he made mushroom soup to start off with and it was sooo good. And then it was this, like, spaghetti but the pasta was super thin, and it had these giant prawns, oh my God. I died. And then he made tiramisu! _Himself! From scratch!_ For a hook-up!”

            “Sounds nice,” I say.

            “It was nice, yes, but, like, it wasn’t respecting the agreed-to terms! But, anyway, it was fine, but like at the end I was so full I was like, I can’t even think about fucking you right now dude, like I can’t move. And he was totally fine! Like not even _a little bit_ like, ‘me man, me make you food, you give me sex now’ sort of bullshit. Like, it hadn’t even been a play, he just cooked me a meal ‘cause he thought I would like it? What kinda crazy…?”

            “You need to up the quality of your hook-ups,” Joaquin says.

            “No! I want sex! Food is great, but I got other people for that! If you’re an FWB, like—I mean you two are a fucking terrible example honestly, the fact that you thought you were friends with benefits and not a straight-up couple for like a year is just ridiculous,” she says to Ezra and Joaquin, who look at each other with sheepish smiles.

            “Urgh! _Anyway_ , so we just cuddle on the couch for a bit like we’re an old married couple, Jesus, and I leave or whatever and we agree to meet up the next week and this time I need to make _sure_ he knows what’s up. So, the day before I text him like, _‘don’t cook. I already know what I want for dinner’_ ,” she says, miming with her hands as if she’s texting. We laugh, and she points at us.

            “Right? Like, you all get what I’m saying. But this dude texts back, _‘what is it? I may not have it anymore but I can go get it if you want.’_ Like, he thought I’d seen something in his pantry I wanted and offered to get it for me? I was like, you adorable dork…so I text back, ‘ _no, fool, I’m talking about your dick,’_ and he was like, _‘oh’,_ ” she says incredulously, and we laugh with her.

            “Oh my God this guy sounds fucking adorable,” Ezra says.

            “I know, right? So anyway, it’s show day, and I go to his and we chat for a bit but I was like, let’s get down to business. I kept an eye on him cause I was like, is he, like, you know, does he want this? But, oh yeah. He definitely want this.

“So it’s getting hot and heavy on the couch and the guy is like, let’s go to the bedroom, because of course he would take it to the bedroom, and I’m like, okay. So we go to the bedroom and I’m feeling saucy, so I just fling myself on the bed and lounge there like a French girl and say, ‘undress for me’. And he’s all shy but he does, it was so adorable he was wearing a button down and he had to undo all the buttons, and then he takes off his pants and I’m like, okay. Like, he was still wearing his underwear and I could definitely tell something was going on down there but I was like, must be a trick of the light, you know? And then he takes his underwear off and he pulls out this fucking _super soaker_ of a dick. Like, I swear to God it swung from one side of the room to the other like, _fwoooh, fwoooh._ ” She sounds out the noise and mimes a swinging trunk. “I was like, it’s not global warming that’s causing all these storms! It’s your dick falling out of your pants affecting the air currents!” she shouts. We laugh loudly around her.

            “Iva…” Joaquin between laughs, shaking his head.

            “Man…it was just so _unexpected._ Like, give a girl a head’s up, you know? See if I need to bring a grapefruit…”

            “You were blessed by the dick Gods,” Ezra says.

            “Some things are a little _too_ much blessing…but that dick was just right! Wassup!” she says, high-fiving Ezra. Joaquin and I roll our eyes, smiling.

            “I love your life,” Ezra says, but immediately looks at Joaquin. “But I also love _my_ life,” he assures. Iva laughs.

            “Have you chosen an apartment yet?” she asks them.

            “No, but we’re getting close, I think. I have a good feeling about this week.”

            “You have a good feeling every week,” Joaquin says.

            “And every week is a good week when I’m with you,” Ezra says, fluttering his eyelashes at Joaquin before kissing him. Iva whips her phone out and takes a picture.

            “You two are so fucking adorkable,” Iva says.

            “We know!” Ezra crows. I laugh, and he turns to me.

            “Dude, what about you? You’ve been so busy with the show that you’ve barely told us anything about the trip!” Ezra says.

            “How did it go?” Joaquin asks.

            “Good. Really good,” I say, and tell them about it. About the salt and the wind and the open air. I tell them about the towns we visited and their people, the cats and the steep hills we had to climb. I tell them about the squid and the truck and meeting Isadoro’s battalion.

            “Wow, how what that?” Ezra asks.

            “It was good. I mean, obviously, I knew about them and had talked to most of them briefly but meeting them was almost…an honour. Like, these were the people who kept Isa safe, you know? That he shared his life with for the last four years, since he joined the Ops. It was…yeah, it was good,” I say, and they nod, smiling in understanding.

            “I think I wouldn’t make a bad soldier,” Ezra says. Joaquin looks at him incredulously.

            “You do know that soldiers _take_ orders?”

            “Oh yeah. Well, then, maybe _you_ would make a good soldier,” he says, smirking. Joaquin blushes.

            “Shut up,” he says. Ezra laughs, wrapping his hand around the back of Joaquin’s neck and kisses his temple. Joaquin closes his eyes and smiles.

            It’s a quiet, intimate moment. The sight of it presses on an old bruise. It’s not that their relationship is perfect. They’re very different, and although that has its advantages, they also clash heads on things, which is probably only going to increase when they live together. But their love for each other is so obvious. It’s not just the soppy phrases and the kisses of the honeymoon stage, which they’ve already left behind. It’s the way they look at each other. Not just moonstruck, but like they see each other, fully. Like they respect and love what the other is, right the way through.

            There’s nobody on earth that’s not looking for some version of that. To be seen and accepted as you are.

            When I tune back in, Iva and Ezra are arguing over how to pronounce the word “sergeant”.

            “Well, how do you say it in Spanish? Cause maybe you’re being influenced by that,” Ezra says. Iva narrows her eyes.

            “Are you saying that ‘cause I’m Hispanic your English is better than mine?”

            “That’s not-”

            “Oooh, mira el gringo este…que bien habla inglés santo mío que talento tiene el pendejito!” Iva says, waving her hands around.

            “That’s not-”

            “I can’t believe you’re pulling the America First card on me.”

            “Don’t even joke about that, that is _not_ what I meant!” Ezra says, gasping in horror.

            “Sure. Sure, sure, sure,” Iva says with teasing sarcasm. Ezra looks at Joaquin imploringly, but he just raises his eyebrows.

            “You’re alone on this one,” he says. Ezra pouts.

            We’ve all finished our drinks, so we head back inside, where Ezra and Iva drag us to the dance floor. We start off in a circle, but Ezra and Joaquin soon pair off, grinding against each other. They look lost in it, Joaquin’s eyes closed and Ezra watching him with an intensity that turns even me on. Ezra’s hand is at the back of Joaquin’s neck again, holding him in place. Ezra leans in slowly and brushes his lips against Joaquin’s, who parts them immediately. Ezra only teases him, however, his hips grinding obscenely while he keeps the kiss chaste.

            I look back at Iva and we share a look before laughing.

            The music is loud and the tone familiar from my childhood. It isn’t long before some guy is sidling up next to me, his hand brushing the small of my back. I look at him, and he’s surprisingly good looking, dark hair and eyes and the kind of skin you want to lick, but I’m not feeling it. I shake my head, putting my palm between us. Thankfully, he stops right away. I see a similar situation happening to Iva, so I pull her close. We dance against each other, but something about the interaction has left me discomfited.

            The feeling materializes from nothing. It unfolds itself into a hole that grows until it’s pushing against my ribs, my spine. I feel lonely, suddenly, amidst all these people. The crush of them around me just makes it worse, like the hollow inside my chest has to expand to compensate. I have to catch my breath for a moment at the sudden pain of it, the dizzying pull of its gravity.

            I don’t want to leave Iva alone, but as soon as she spots people she knows, I tell her to join them and point to myself, and then the exit. Iva nods, not pushing it, and gives me a kiss on the cheek.

            She’s a good friend.

            I leave the other two to it—they won’t even notice I’m gone, too wrapped up in each other.

            When I step outside, the fresh air is a pure relief, but the ache lingers.

I walk home.

 

*****

 

            It’s only a little past midnight by the time I get home, but Isadoro is still up. For once, I’m glad to see he’s awake this late, shrouded in the warm glow of the living room lamps. The TV is off, but a laptop is propped on his lap, his legs stretched with his feet resting on the coffee table.

            “Hey,” he greets.

            “Hey,” I say a little tiredly, slumping next to him on the couch.

            “Thought you’d be back a little later,” he says.

            “Mmmh. Everybody was pairing off to dance.”

            “Nobody catch your eye?”

            “No,” I say. I close my eyes, resting my head on the back of the couch as Isadoro clicks away at his keyboard.

            Suddenly, a woman’s voice speaks from Isadoro’s laptop as he places it on the coffee table. ‘ _Play it, Sam. Play, As Time Goes By’._ I open my eyes as a song streams through the living room. Isadoro is standing with a hand outstretched like a fairy tale prince. I snort, rolling my eyes, but I let myself be pulled up. We move away from the couch as he pulls me close, our hands clasped and his other hand on my waist, mine resting on his shoulder. We sway to the sound of a man’s deep voice and a piano, singing about love and time.

            That hollow place inside me fills up, its raw edges soothed.

            “Is this from Casablanca?” I ask, listening to the song as I rest my head on his shoulder.

            “Yeah.”

            “Isn’t the movie, like…racist or something?”

            “I think you’re thinking of _The Sound of Music_.”

            “Pretty sure there’s more than one racist film in Hollywood, Isadoro.”

            “I’m just saying that _The Sound of Music_ is _especially_ racist.”

            “But what does that have to do with anything? I was talking about-”

            “Fine, I’m sorry for playing us a racist song, Iván.”

            “I like the song.”

            “Oh my God,” he laughs. I grin into his shoulder. We shuffle in a circle. I feel his thumb stroke against the back of my hand.

            “…Actually, I think it was misogynistic, not racist. Wrong fork of the asshole trident.”

            “Iván.”

            “I’m just saying!”

            Isadoro holds me closer, and my hand moves from his shoulder to the back of his neck, my fingertips running through the bristles of his short hair. I close my eyes, and let one song melt into the next, pressed close against him.

 

**********

 

            Two days before the show, Isadoro comes back from the V.A. in the morning with a cloud thundering over his head. He goes straight into his room and shuts the door, which he’s been keeping open more and more lately. I take a deep breath, but despair doesn’t hit.

This is the organic pain of a healing wound, instead of a festering one.

He skips lunch, but I join him on the bed before dinnertime. He turns to face me when I lay down next to him and we just rest there for a while, being.

            “How are you feeling about work starting soon?” Isadoro asks eventually. I smile, knowing this simple act of communication is miles ahead of how it was before.

            “I’m looking forward to it, actually. I like the work, and the company is good. I mean, the clients are a nightmare, but since I’m not freelancing, at least I don’t get stiffed. I swear to God, there would always be these adverts for ‘young’ graphic designers or artists and what they meant was cheap and desperate. And since I was broke and desperate…it sucked when they thought they could pay you in exposure. Fuck off. And some of the instructions! ‘just make it more… _more.’_ Once I made a logo that was completely made of different shades of purple and the client said it ‘wasn’t purple enough’. Like…I’m about to shove an aubergine up your ass, lady,” I mutter. Isadoro laughs.

            “That sounds like how I felt about the Fobbits—the middle and upper management who rarely leave the FOB, you know? It’s like they lived in another world. When I was a Private, they’d have us give out these, like, newspapers to the local population that was basically anti-ISIS propaganda, then ask what the impact of them was. We’d have to tell them that most of the population there wasn’t literate, and they’d be completely gobsmacked. They were just fucking clueless. Even in the Ops, they’d order us to not only raid a mosque, but on a Friday, for some bullshit mission which wasn’t nearly worth the blow-back that would cause regarding building relationships in the town. I almost went ballistic on that one.”

            “Fuck…that’s majorly fucked up.”

            “Yep. Never underestimate the stupidity of middle and upper management in any area of life.”

            “Amen to that. I kinda get why you wanted to go deeper into the army, now.”

            “Yeah. When you live through all that shit you either lose hope, or you gain persistence,” he says.

            “That’s why you have nothing to worry about, Isadoro. That persistence, it’s who you are. It’s not gonna let you stop,” I say. He looks back at me, saying nothing, but his face doesn’t stiffen and close off. I smile at him.

            “Nervous about the show?” Isadoro asks, changing the subject.

            “Meh. I think I’ve run out of emotions, to be honest. You’re coming, right?”

            “Of course I’m coming,” he says, frowning.

            “Just making sure.”

            “Have you thought of selling your art? I know we've talked about it before, but…”

            “I mean, yeah. But…I don’t know. That’s such an…unknown. I couldn’t afford—like, _literally_ couldn’t afford—to go down that path before, so…but we’ll see how this show goes. I’ve just never had the opportunity to put anything like this together before.”

            “You’re going to kill it. I would definitely buy your pieces.”

            “You can have them for free.”

            “I mean if I didn’t know you, I’d buy them.”

            “I’d still give them to you for free. Who could resist this pretty face?” I tease, pressing his cheeks together to give him fish lips. He smacks my hand away, laughing. We settle again, looking at each other.

            “I am so fucking proud of you,” he says, warming me.

            The truth is, so am I.


	11. Chapter 11

The show takes place in a large gallery big enough to dedicate a room to each of the chosen students. It’s an important event within the local artistic community, showcasing emerging talent to interested parties. The opportunity is not only for the students but for galleries and patrons searching for people they can invest in.

            I’m in Iva’s showroom, feeling too anxious to watch people react to my pieces for too long. People mill around with drinks in their hands, travelling the rooms alone or in groups, their eyes on the art pieces.

            Iva’s show is stunning. The series depicts a healing Puerto Rico. It transports you to an island that was just hit by a hurricane, not shying away from showing the destruction left behind by wind and rain. The scenes could easily look post-apocalyptic. Instead, they are filled with hope.

            Iva has not lingered on the devastation. Her paintings contain the suffering caused by the storm—the expression on an old woman’s face as she looks at the remains of the house she was born in, the house her children were born in. The tired slump of a man’s shoulders as he looks at the downed powerline that affects his whole neighbourhood. But, what glows from her paintings is a sense of community. Of strength. Behind the old woman, her daughter has a hand on her shoulder, comfort on her face. On the road with the man is a group of people hard at work.

            These are windows into the lives of people who refuse to give up.

            Each picture depicts a moment of such intense intimacy you are instantly taken there. You can walk around the room and suddenly know people you’ve never met. You look at a painting and are suddenly standing in a kitchen, watching a small, skinny girl point a wind-up flashlight at where her mother is cooking dinner. The girl is leaning forward, face delighted as she accepts a piece of the food to try. You can smell the spices and the meat, the scent of the sizzling vegetables. You can hear the laughter of the rest of the family working around the house.

            You walk forwards and find yourself outside. The stars are bright in the sky, but your attention is fixed on the people sitting on a home’s porch, spilling onto the garden. This house is one of the few with electricity, and the owners have wheeled their TV out to share with their neighbours. Kids crowd against it, illuminated by the screen, each expression vivid with life as they stare transfixed or turn to talk to the person next to them, sharing snacks and laughter.

            You take another step and see two neighbours talking, their gestures and expressions speaking of a deep familiarity as they exchange goods, each willing to give what the other needs.

            The paintings may be filled with shattered houses and sprawled debris, but they are filled with colour. The bright dresses of women. The green that flourishes even after the storm. The façades that remain are red, yellow, orange, pink. The sky above is cloudless and blue. 

            I’d seen all these pictures before individually, but seeing them together like a story takes my breath away.

            “Iva…” I say when I reach her. Joaquin and Ezra are off to the side, looking at a picture depicting them. They’re working on a house, having flown to Puerto Rico during Christmas to help Joaquin and Iva’s extended family, who couldn’t all fly out of the island.

            “Iva, these are so amazing. I’m just…wow,” I say. She grins at me and looks uncharacteristically embarrassed.

            “Thanks, I…they mean a lot to me.”

            “I can tell. They’re just…”

            “Fucking amazing,” Joaquin says, wrapping his arms around her and squeezing her tight. I grin at the slightly out of character show of enthusiasm.

            “They’re so good. _So_ good,” Ezra says, practically vibrating with happy energy.

            “So good,” I agree. Iva makes a happy noise and we all crowd in to hug her, laughing.

            I leave them to it, moving towards my own showroom when someone calls my name. I grin as I spot Jack, walking toward her.

            “Hey! You made it!”

            “Duh, like I would miss this,” she says, hugging me. “I just came from your room. Iván…Jesus. Like, I knew you were talented but I’m…I’m kind of speechless,” she says.

            I feel myself blushing.

            “Thanks,” I say a little awkwardly. She laughs.

            “Are they for sale? There’s one I fucking love. Well, there’s a few, but one I have to take home.”

            “You don’t have to buy them! You get the friend special, which is 100% off.”

            “No way. First rule of business. No, first rule of life; know your worth, and charge accordingly,” Jack says, pointing her finger at me.

            “Whatever,” I say, rolling my eyes.

            “Don’t whatever me, young man. Anyway, did you come with Isadoro? Where’s he at?”

            “No, I had to come early to set stuff up. He probably thought I’d be in my room and headed straight there,” I say.

            “And why aren’t _you_ in your showroom?” she asks as we start walking towards it.

            “I’m _going_!”

            My collection is not unlike Iva’s. It is a series of moments. A series of scenes in someone’s life. They are free of context, but they are meant to transport you. Not only to a place but to a time in someone’s life. Isadoro’s life. The life of a soldier, through a veteran’s eyes.

            The scenes are chiaroscuro. They are the blinding heat of Afghan days casting long, deep shadows in the still forms of waiting soldiers. It is standing in the sun, exposed, as a group of men peer at you from the gloom of a mosque entrance. It is a scene at night, a confusion of movement, cut through with a beam of light filled with the swirling moondust of the Pakistani border.

            It is people. The small muscles on their faces rearranging themselves to tell you something, or to hide the truth. There is so much you don’t know, looking at these pictures. Your mind cannot catch up to what the feeling in your gut is telling you at being so suddenly in this foreign land. One moment you are safe in the smile of a fellow soldier, the next vulnerable to the bright beam of suspicion from the people waiting for you on the other side of the wire.

            There is one single picture which is different. My throat squeezes for a moment as I recognize Isadoro standing before it, back stiff and straight, shoulders a perfect line as he looks at himself drawn by my hand, by my eyes.

            The Isadoro in the picture is painted with light. He is almost glowing, but only because he seems to be disappearing, his skin diaphanous, casting moonlight all around him. He is greys, blues, the translucent black of shadows. Everything around him is space and silence. As you look at him, there is a void between you, and with it comes a longing you can feel in the pit of your stomach. It makes you want to touch the canvas, to poke your fingers through it and to the other side, to be pulled inside and join the man in the picture, sitting with his light and his shadows.

            It’s like he can sense me. As Jack and I walk towards Isadoro, he turns around. The moment he meets my eyes, I know. I’ve made a mistake. I can see the realization on his face, a spear through me. No one could look at that picture and not figure it out. Not understand the desperate want, not feel the sting of the salty wind blowing from the love that is an endless expanse as far as the light can reach.

            “Iván,” he says and, God, the sound of my name said like that. The stormy sea of it. I don’t know what hides underneath.

            “Hey!” I say, and the smile I give him is a strain on my face. “Isa, you’ve got to meet Jack! Remember I told you about her?” I say with an overabundance of false cheer. Isadoro looks at Jack.

            “Hey,” Jack says. “I’ve heard a lot of things about you too.”

            “Hi. Nice to meet you,” Isadoro replies. They shake hands like they’ve just finished a business deal. Despite the pain radiating from my gut, I almost roll my eyes.

            “Can I talk to you?” Isadoro says abruptly, looking at me. I struggle to keep the panic from my face.

            “I, uh, I really can’t right now. I’ve got to, you know, mingle. But later, yeah?” I stutter, pleading for him not to do this now.

            I know Isadoro’s sense of what is right will propel him into wanting to talk to me. To let me down easy, check on my wounds as my fall finally reaches its hard landing. He’ll want to diagnose if my unrequited love is fatal or if there’s hope for a cure and I—I can’t.

            “You two,” I point between Isadoro and Jack. “I’ve gotta,” I point a thumb over my shoulder. Both of them frown at me as I take a step back. Luckily, I spot one of my ex-teachers on the other side of the room and head towards her.

            I avoid Isadoro desperately after that, even managing to get distracted into conversations with different people. Most of them I know, but some faces are new, showing interest in the paintings. They ask for the story behind the collection, and I tell them the bare bones of it.

            “Someone I love is a veteran. It’s his eyes you’re looking through.”

            I try to enjoy the exhibition, but there’s a peach pit of anxiety in my stomach, its filament roots digging into my intestines, my liver, up to my lungs.

            Eventually, Jack finds me taking a moment in a corner.

            “What’s wrong with you?” she asks bluntly, although not unkindly.

            “He knows.”

            “Who?”

            “Isadoro.”

            “Knows what? What are you talking about?”

            “He knows! He knows that I…” I make a gesture towards my whole self. The confusion on Jack’s face clears.

            “Oh, that you’re ridiculously in love with him and have been forever? Jesus, took him long enough,” she says, rolling her eyes. I almost can’t breathe with indignation.

            “Jack, are you not getting it?”

            “Are _you_ not getting it? This is the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”

I open my mouth to retort, but Iva suddenly comes up to her.

            “Hi,” she says, waving at Jack and then looking at me. “Is everything okay?”

            “No. He knows.”

            “Who?”

            “Isadoro.”

            “Knows what?” Iva asks. Jack interjects before I can say anything.

            “That he’s stupidly in love and stupid and in love.”

            “Oh,” Iva says, rolling her eyes. “Good thing it was obvious, or it would have taken Isadoro another bazillion years,” Iva snorts. Jack raises her eyebrows, making a gesture toward Iva as if to say, _see?_

            “You guys are not understanding the severity of this situation,” I grind out.

            “Hey. Is everything okay?” Ezra says as he walks up with Joaquin. I cover my face with my hands

            “He knows!”

            “Who?”

            “Isa-”

            “Oh my God. We’re not doing this again. Isadoro found out the very well-kept secret of Iván’s totally-secret-not-at-all-obvious, madly in-loveness.”

            “Oh. He only _just_ found out? Don’t they…live together? How could he not know?” Ezra says.

            “That is _hilarious_ coming from you,” Iva says.

            “Hey! We weren’t living together!”

            “You practically were! Not that it matters! I just — oh Jesus, I am surrounded by dumb boys. So many dumb, dumb boys.”

            “Just you wait. Just you wait until you fall in love,” Ezra says.

            “When I fall in love, I’m going to tell them straight away.”

            “Ha! Oh, I can’t _wait_ to throw that in your face!”

            “Excuse me!” I cut in. “Hello? Remember me? Having a crisis here?”

            “A crisis? Wait…what? What’s the crisis?” Ezra asks.

            “Isadoro. _Knows_ ,” I whisper-scream in frustration.

            “Uh…yeah? Not seeing the crisis here. Aren’t you already fucking?”

            “No!” I say. Everybody looks at me incredulously. “Not _anymore_ ,” I correct. I’m subjected to a Mexican-wave of eyerolls.

            “Okay, this is even dumber than the Ezra-and-Joaquin thing,” Iva says. “Just talk to him for the love of God! Is that really so hard?”

            “Yes!”

            “Urgh. Boys,” Iva says, throwing her hands in the air. Jack pinches the bridge of her nose before putting her palms towards me as if to calm me down.

            “Okay. Iván. He already knows. He’s your best friend. You’ve been through a lot of shit together. It will be fine. Concentrate on the fucking fantastic exhibition you’ve put on and when it’s over, talk to your friend and sort it out. It won’t be worse than what you’ve gone through before so…pull yourself together,” she says. I look at her, opening my mouth, before closing it with a sigh.

            “Fine.”

            “Good. Up and at ‘em,” she says.

            It’s going to be a long night.

 

**********

 

            The light is off in the entryway, but I see the glow of a lamp in the living room. I press my back against the front door for a moment, breathing. I can’t catch up to my emotions. They’re the streaming streak of headlights in the dark, one beginning before the last one ends, until the colours run together and blur.

            The living room is an orange, transparent cocoon. I stand in its shadow, stilling as Isadoro gets up from the couch and turns towards me.

            “Hey,” I say.

            “Hey.” There is a moment of silence. “That picture…”

            “Can we do this tomorrow?” I interrupt. He ignores me.

            “What were you thinking about?”

            “Can we just…we can talk tomorrow, okay?”

            “Iván.”

            “You. You, you, I was thinking about you. What else would I be thinking about?” I say almost bitterly. He rounds the couch and stands there, feet away from me.

            “What about me?”

            “I…don’t know. I can’t put it into words, that’s what the damn picture is for,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest, protecting myself from the hit that’s about to come.

Isadoro says nothing. The silence lengthens, stretching my skin and tendons until I feel like they’re going to snap.

            “Isa-” I start, but he’s walking towards me. Slowly, with that look I’ve seen so many times before like he’s piercing a hole right to my core. I can’t look at him, but when he reaches me his hands cup my face. He doesn’t even tilt it up, just runs his thumb against my cheek.

            “I love you,” he says. I close my eyes.

            “I know,” I reply, waiting for the ‘but…’.

            Instead, “Iván,” he says, a call. Reluctantly, I open my eyes and look at him. As soon as I do, my heart rabbits ahead. An animal part of me recognizes that expression, even if my mind can’t quite believe it.

            “Iván,” he repeats, pressing the words against my temple. “How can you not know? I thought you’d always known.”

            “Known what? Known what?” I ask, choking on the word _always_.

            “That I love you, and want you, and am…fucking crazy about you. Crazy out of my mind from this, this…this feeling, this wanting and…” I stare at him incredulously. He grasps my face more firmly, pressing his words into my skin.

            “I used to watch you sleep when we were kids. Teenagers,” he says, and a burst of laughter leaves me.

            “What! Isa…what are you talking about? That is literally the creepiest thing you’ve ever said and trust me, buddy, the list is long on that one,” I say. He laughs.

            “I know. I know. But I just…I couldn’t help myself when you slept right there so close and I would just… _want_. Want to be there on that side, in your bed and…”

            “Then why didn’t you?” I ask, clutching at the front of his shirt like I can make him go back and fix all the pain his absence had caused.

            “Because I knew that’s not how you felt then. I don’t know when it changed, but-”

            “What the fuck are you talking about? Isa, I’ve always been in love with you. I feel like I’ve loved you longer than I’ve known you, sometimes,” I say. Isadoro stares at me.

            “Don’t say that,” he says quietly, the shadow cast by a plea. “Don’t say that.”

            “Isa-”

            “You didn’t. Not like I did. I looked. God, I looked, you didn’t need me-”

            “What does that have to do with anything? _Need_? You went, you left, if anyone didn’t need-”

            “No. You don’t know. When I was deployed…you don’t know what having you here gave me. An anchor. And I know, maybe…Maybe you’re right and need shouldn’t come into this and I’m all fucked up. You should be with-”

            “Don’t fucking tell me who I should be with. Who do you think you are? I get to decide who I’m with, not you!”

            “I’m all fucked up,” Isadoro says, a whisper in a confession box. “I can’t…go dancing with you, or-”

            “Isadoro you idiot, I’ve been here every step of the way! I’ve been here, and I’m still here, and I’ll fucking stay here. Do you think I’m blind to the fact that there are going to be challenges? You’re not fucked up. The situation is fucked up, and it's affecting you, yeah. Okay, I get it. But…Isadoro, you incredible dumbass, I don’t want to go out dancing with you. I want to dance here, in our kitchen. I want to…hold your hand and I want you with me. Do you understand? Wherever you are, a part of you should be with me.”

            “It has been,” Isadoro implores, but I shake my head.

            “You may think so, but…I don’t want to feel alone anymore. And that’s what I feel when I don’t have you,” I say.

            I could console myself with the supposition that knowing Isadoro loved me all along, truly being with him during his deployment, could have made it harder. But that’s just not how it works. It was worse, not having him and yet fearing to lose him at the same time. It was so much worse. I didn’t know what fear could do to a person. That constant, background possibility of the sudden, severing blade of death. It’s like a tumour you can’t remove, living with the chance it’s malignant and not finding out until the very end.

            “You have me. You fucking have me,” he says and crushes me to him. I squeeze him back, my head still not catching up, incredulous.

            “How long?” he asks as if I haven’t already told him.

            “Fuck, Isa…you were my first kiss, remember?” I say, my voice a little wobbly.

            He’s alive. He came back. He’s here, with me.

            Isadoro pulls back, narrowing his eyes.

            “Your first kiss was with that mouth-breather, Brandon.”

            “Oh my God,” I laugh, rolling my eyes. “I thought spin-the-bottle kisses didn’t count?”

            “Hmph,” he grunts, but then his expression clears.

            He leans down, pressing his lips against mine. “Iván,” he says, “Iván,” and I’ve heard that exact tone a hundred times before, but this is the first time I recognize it for what it is.

            He presses his forehead against mine and we just stand there for a moment.

            “This is so sappy,” I say wetly. “I could totally say something disgustingly cheesy about last kisses right now.”

            “Yes,” he says as if he’s agreeing with a statement I haven’t made.

            I pull him into a kiss.

            The kiss is the same familiar, languid pace. The slow drag of tongue and teeth that has me breathless in seconds. But something has changed. I let myself feel the love of it. Not just the want, but the having. The possibility of feeling safe in knowing this isn’t going to just disappear.

            I back him up a little blindly towards my bedroom. We bump into the couch and he lifts me up, my legs wrapping around him as we continue kissing. We bump into the door frame as we reach my room, stumbling inside and onto my bed, laughing into each other’s lips.

            His hands slip under my shirt, dragging up my sides. My legs are still hooked around his waist and I try to pull him down, but he resists. Instead, he breaks the kiss and I untangle my arms from around his neck so he can remove my shirt, and then his.

I hum at the new playground of skin, running my fingers down his chest, stroking the hair leading down. His abs jump at the light, teasing touch, and he grabs my hand, pinning it next to my head. I smirk at him, pulling him down by the neck to kiss him again.

            My other hand sneaks down between our bodies. I press the palm against his trapped cock and he jerks slightly, huffing a moan into my mouth. He grabs that hand too, pressing it onto the bed to mirror the other.

            “You’ve got no patience,” he says breathlessly.

            “I want you.”

            “You have me.”

He lowers his hips and presses me into the mattress, grinding slowly. The pressure offers no relief, only more heat-giving light. I pull at the restraint of his hands.

            “No more clothes,” I say. Thankfully, Isadoro agrees and shuffles back on his knees as we divest ourselves and each other of our remaining clothes.

            When he presses against me next, it’s all skin and muscle and him. I press my lips to his neck and smell oranges, sparking millions of neurons dedicated to him.

Isadoro grips our cocks in his hand and pulls at us slowly. I move my hips with his pace, feeling the slide of his skin, the wetness of his cock against mine. I grip one of his ass cheeks in one hand, squeezing him tight. He grunts into my neck.

            “More,” I say, and squirm from under him to reach the bedside table. When I settle on my back, I squeeze lube generously on my hand. Without preamble, I slide two fingers into my hole.

            “Jesus,” Isadoro says.

            He sits up, kneeling on the bed with his ass on his ankles, knees pointing towards me. He grabs my hips and drags me towards him, my knees bending towards my chest. He lifts me so my ass is propped up on his knees, hole exposed.

            “Fuck,” I say, trembling.

Isadoro watches my fingers disappear into my hole, my arms straining. He holds fast onto my hip with one hand while the other comes to part my cheek further for a moment before a finger presses against my stretched entrance. I pant hard, feeling vulnerable and safe.

            He grabs the lube, manoeuvring it so some gets on his fingers before they return to my ass. My arm is burning, fingers tired, but I keep going. I’m rewarded by one of his fingers breaching me alongside my own. A moan drags itself out of me. He joins my pace, pumping in and out of me before I feel the press of another finger.

            I whine as it enters me. God, the stretch. The fullness.

            Isadoro doesn’t let me slow down. He slides his two fingers in and out, and mine follow. I can’t quite catch my breath, and then Isadoro presses his fingers down and I stop breathing completely. I choke on the pleasure that lights through my body.

            I must be making some kind of noise because Isadoro shushes me, stroking his thumb on my hip bone.

            “Fuck me,” I say. “Fuck me already.”

            I hear Isadoro laugh slightly, but then his fingers are sliding out slowly, and so are mine. I feel so empty suddenly, feeling my hole wink closed. I gasp a little, broken sound, but then Isadoro is hauling me up. He turns us around so his back is against the headboard and I straddle his lap.

I hold the base of his dick and then sit on it in almost one go. The move punches the breath out of both of us, but my hips are already grinding up and down as if untethered from me.

            “Oh God,” I moan. Isadoro pulls me into a sloppy kiss and then away just to look at me.

            “I, I,” I say, but the words get lost in the moment.

            I start fucking myself for real. I lift my hips, feeling the drag of his cock inside me, before pushing down sharply. Isadoro holds my hips, following my pace. I tilt my head back, just feeling for a moment, letting the reality of it wash through me.

            Isadoro doesn’t tolerate the distance, however. He pulls me close again, wrapping his arms around me until we are pressed close. All I can do from this angle is grind up and down deliciously, so it’s just full to fuller to rubbing the spot inside me that makes my voice fill with pleasure. I bury the sounds in Isadoro’s neck.

            He is everywhere around me. I feel him so close.

            There was a time when I lay next to him in bed and felt thousands of miles away. During the last night of his first leave, watching him next to me. His eyes were closed, but I couldn’t tell if he was really asleep. His body was foreign to me then. It had widened, filled. His eyes had changed. The quality of his movement had altered. I’d have to relearn this Isadoro, but he wasn’t mine anymore. Not like he had been mine during childhood. It had been him and me, then. But life didn’t care about the plans made by either animal or man. 

Now, his body is here to stay. All those alterations in the fabric are being smoothed of their abrupt edges. There is still so much more to learn and figure out. The hard parts of life don’t stop just because you find somebody to spend it with, but we have time. And each other.

            “Iván,” he says, and I can feel the pleasure rising. He starts thrusting his hips harder as he grips my cock, stroking me with an uneven, desperate pace.

            “Fuck, yes. Yes,” I say, clenching my ass around him, and I feel him come a moment before orgasm hits me too.

            My dick spurts over his hand and chest as he pulls me closer. He buries himself in me and I take him, just as he is right now.

            We pant against each other. I feel completely sated, down to the quality of my soul. We lay there for a while, sticky and sweaty. We have all the time in the world.

 

**********

 

            When we were seven, we’d been playing on the farm when we were suddenly cursed by an evil wizard. He had bonded us together so we couldn’t part for more than a few feet or suffer pain like we had never felt before. We searched the wide lands of _La Portera_ for a cure, but none could be found.

            We’d gone home and told my parents of our predicament. They’d tamped down a smile and nodded severely.

            “That sounds very inconvenient,” my dad had said seriously, “seeing as how you’re always so far away from each other.”

            “We have to do _everything_ together,” I had said.

            “Even poop?” my mom had asked. Isadoro and I had looked at each other.

            “We can stand outside the door for that,” Isadoro had decided.

            The curse had lasted three days. We showered and ate and slept together. We made plans about how we’d deal with the curse once we got to school. But then, on the Sunday night, mom came into my room where we were playing on connected Gameboys. She was holding a cup in her hands, and we squinted at her suspiciously as she neared.

            “What’s that?” Isadoro had asked.

            “A poultice.”

            “A what?”

            “A potion.”

            “For what?” I’d asked, even though I already knew.

            “For the curse. We found the cure.”

            Isadoro and I had sat up, looking at each other.

            “No, that’s not the right cure,” he had said. I had nodded.

            “How do you know? You haven’t had it yet.”

            “Doesn’t smell right.”

            “Well, this is a special, very effective version. See, if you drink this you’ll never be able to be cursed together again,” my mom had said. Isadoro and I looked at each other in a panic.

            “But we want-”

            “That’s not how it-”

            My mom had shushed us gently, sitting on the bed with us.

            “No, this is good. See, this way, you don’t _have_ to stay with each other. You can go and see the world and when you’re together, you’ll know it’s because you want to and chose each other. You don’t want a dumb old curse making your decisions for you, right? Now you can choose each other,” she’d explained. We’d thought about it for a moment.

            “I choose you, Pikachu!” Isadoro had exclaimed.

            “I choose you, Charizard!” I’d shouted back before we dissolved into giggles.

            “Okay, okay. Drink up,” my mom had said.

            We’d drank the potion. The curse had been lifted. We could walk away from each other if we wanted. And we did—after fights, when we wanted space, when life had to be lived.

            But we always came back.

 

**********

 

            We shower together. It’s a first for us, and it’s amazingly cramped and awkward. We laugh until we give up on even pretending it’s sexy and get out, managing not to slip to our deaths in our tiny bathroom.

            Back in my room, the curtains are drawn back, and the night is dark outside. A lamp glows over us as we lay together, our fingers tracing each other’s skin like it’s new terrain, when in reality it was mapped years ago. We face each other, two brackets containing a world of words within.

            “I’m thinking of going back to school,” Isadoro says. It takes me a moment to untangle the words. When they hit me, I feel my face light up.

            “Really?” I say, trying to contain my excitement. I don’t care if he goes to school or not. I care that he’s thinking ahead with enough hope to consider it.

            “Yeah. I mean, not now, obviously. But, you know. When things get better.”

            “What do you want to do?”

            “I was thinking…veterinary technician,” he says, and I almost jolt up in the bed before managing to calm myself down at the last minute.

            “Oh, my God. That’s _perfect_ for you, Isa! I mean obviously only if you want but that…I can totally, totally see you being great at that. Can you specialize in certain animals? You could specialize in lizards or something,” I say excitedly.

            “Lizards? Why on earth would I want to specialize in lizards?”

            “I dunno, ‘cause they’re cool. They’d give you an edge.”

            “An edge to what? Unemployment?”

            “I don’t know, loser! Fine, specialize in puppies, we all know you want to!” I huff before breaking into a grin. Isadoro laughs, shaking his head against the pillow.

            We watch each other for a while, scooting a little closer, our hands still brushing each other’s skin.

            “I was also thinking…maybe we could get a place together. Like, a real home. Something with a few rooms, you know? One with lots of light for your art. A garden. We can get something for a good price that can be fixed up. It’ll give me something to do while I get my shit together, you know?” he says. His voice is tentative, but his eyes are bright.

            I’m speechless. I look at him as the picture he just painted hits me. I imagine a house, a home, surrounded by green. Near the forest, maybe, where Isadoro’s dark creatures will have space to breathe and lose their energy. Some place a little shabby, at first, so when it’s all fixed up we’ve put something of ourselves in it. So it looks and feels like us, like a place that was meant to hold us and everything we drag along.

            I imagine a room with an easel, smelling of paint and charcoal and thinner. Imagine the light bouncing off the colours on once-blank canvases. I imagine memories painted in light and darkness and then evolving into the present, the future.

            I imagine the art spreading across the house. Not just mine, but Iva’s and others’, people we have yet to meet. I imagine the pictures that will be taken by our future selves, filling our home with new memories.

            I imagine the long walks between the trees. A dog, chasing its freedom across the grass. Imagine the miles of fresh air and blue sky, for us.

            I imagine us. In the kitchen, cooking together. Tucked in the glow of the living room.   I imagine the darkness of Isadoro’s room following us there and banishing it slowly. I imagine the light that will glow in the dark, that right now stretches empty and hollow, nights without night. Without rest or peace, but that will be filled with time. Working hard at it, letting the darkness out to the forest to be wild and what it is, and leave our room for us.

            I imagine him. Filling that space with me. Being mine, in the soft way that people can be yours. Without curses, without pain. A choice.

            I open my mouth as I stare at Isadoro. I can’t speak. I close my eyes, feeling everything at once.

            Isadoro pulls me against him and just holds me for a while, understanding.

            “Are you sure? Together” I ask. Not because I doubt him, but because life has never been this kind.

            “Yes. Iván, together. Everything together,” he replies.

            I breathe out and then in, tucking my face against him. I can see the road ahead. It’s long and winding. Difficult, like life is. There is distance yet to travel, but distance doesn’t matter. We know how to weather the difficulties, now.

            Together.

 

_Fin_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Thank you so much for reading Nights Without Night and taking this journey with me. I hope you enjoyed getting to know Iván and Isadoro as much as I enjoyed writing about them. 
> 
> If you did, please consider spreading the word any way you can. Reviews, social media, word of mouth—you have an amazing ability to impact my life and help me continue writing! Any little helps.
> 
> You can find the rest of my published work on Amazon, and find more information about the books and what is coming next at my website Marinavivancos dot com. 
> 
> Don't miss the kinky beginning of Ezra and Joaquin'd story in the first Fox Lake book, "Sicken of the Calm"
> 
> Find Supernatural stories in the Natural Magic series. Follow Orphan Damien as he finds a family one moonlit night when all seems lost in "In This Iron Ground".
> 
> Read a steampunk, arranged marriage, Alpha/Omega novella, "honeythorn". 
> 
> I'm always open to feedback, so don't be shy!


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